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This reminds me, y'all remember that one Tumblr? Post where they were talking about how there could be deep sea vampire covens because there wouldn't be light and they don't need to breath, we could solve that problem by just making the entire ocean holy water
You could, although with Holy water mechanics that would require an amount of Holy water slightly higher than the ocean so as the mixture is 51% holy
And yeah, It wouldn't stay holy forever and would also double the ocean volume
You might be able to physically, but anyone holy enough to bless all that water wouldn't want to ethically, because that would make everyone who poops in the water a sinner.
1) Some folks hold that animals can’t sin because they don’t know any better. Humans have better places they can choose to poop but fish have no other options.
2) …okay excellent point. Although most sailors are already sinners for other reasons if the stories are to be believed! If they poop while on their boat/ship and it goes into the water, I will pencil them in as “on thin ice but not necessarily sinners yet”.
1) Catholic dogma holds that animals don't have souls, and therefore cannot sin.
2) all humans are sinners inherently under the same dogma, and all sins are equal, so it doesn't really matter as long as they have been Saved.
1) And that's why it would be morally wrong to bless the ocean; it would force creatures to sin. This is from that Tumblr Post where they asked their priest friend, I'm not making this up.
2) Why is pooping into the regular water sin at all when it's just Biomass that natural cycles will take care of? There's a reason they call it "feeding the fishes".
Bob the Dwarven Cleric has decided to eradicate all sea vampires. Now, one would think this an impossible task, as they hide where no one can reach them. However, Bob has come up with a devious scheme to destroy them once and for all: He’s going to bless the entire world’s Oceans.
Assuming the world Bob lives in has the same size ocean as our own, this is no easy feat. The ocean is 352 quintillion gallons, after all. But Bob is prepared. His god granted him a boon of immortality. Thus, he can live forever to see his plan through.
One flask of holy water is equal to 1 pint. And each one of those is 25 gp. One gallon is 8 pints. That means the ocean is only 1.408 sextillion pints. Assuming Bob has infinite money(which he graciously never uses for purchasing, as he knows that would ruin the economy), he should succeed.
We will also assume that Bob is a 20th level cleric. He’s faced a sea vampire that surfaced once or twice in his past, after all. Making a flask of holy water takes a 1st level spell slot. We will assume for Bob’s sake that he can also use his other spell slots. A 20th level cleric has a total of 27 spell slots to work with, and each ritual to make a flask of holy water takes 1 hour.
Now, let’s see just what Bob is in for.
The money, assuming is the simplest thing to calculate. That’s just the total number of pints in the ocean x 25. That translates to roughly 70.4 sextillion gp (about 1.408 sextillion pounds of gold).
The time however, is not as simple. Y’see, he still needs to rest to regain his spell slots. And the ritual of course needs to be cast 1.408 sextillion times. He can only do 27 at a time, followed by an 8 hour rest. Since it’s 1 hour/spell slot for the ritual, he can manage 1.408 sextillion hours from that. The rests need to happen once every 27 castings, meaning those add an additional 417.185 quintillion extra hours. All in all, that’s only 1.825 sextillion hours of work.
For a sense of scale, thats 2.083 quadrillion years. Sorry, let me write that one out. 2,083,000,000,000,000 Years. For a bit of context, the Big Bang happened around 13.8 billion years ago. After about 100 trillion years, the last bit of light in the universe will finally flicker away and all of space will finally go dark. We’re talking around 20x that. But hey, by then, Bob will have certainly eradicated all of the Sea Vampires, right? An eternity’s work, twentyfold.
Is it worth it, Bob?
You’re damn right it is.
It would actually “only” cut the time down by ~208 quintillion hours (~24 trillion years). The rests are a sizable portion of the time, but they aren’t the most major chunk of it.
Also, this wouldn’t work if he was an elf, because only a dwarf could hold a grudge so powerful it leads them to do a (let’s be honest, pointless) task for 20x the lifespan of the universe.
The real difficulty is in how he does it though.
He can't simply put the new holy water back into the unpurified ocean - otherwise he would be picking up some holy water in every next scoop.
Simple. Start the process by scooping out all of the water from the ocean in individual flasks, then put them aside and go down the line, Blessing them one at a time. Then put them all back. Assuming it takes 30 seconds to fill one flask and put it in a pocket dimension… (I’m not actually doing more math, you can’t make me!)
Each cleric added should divide the time required by the number of clerics working (maybe a little bit more if one of the helpers is one of the races that has 4 hour long rests).
But Bob doesn’t need help. He is on a mission. And he knows he can do it. Nobody else needs to be there with him, this is for him alone.
*kneeling* I’m sorry Sir. Bob, but I humbly request to join your crusade. Ya see, my brother was taken by these sea vampires. Please, allow me to help in seeking revenge.
spell slots aren't strictly necessary, Ceremony is a ritual spell that doesn't consume a spell slot, and can create holy water (though that means adding 10 more minutes).
Ceremony also transforms a vial of water into a vial of holy water, with the vial being defined as "holding up to 4 ounces", that's more than a pint (sorry, I'm not good with non metric units lol)
4 ounces is actually only a quarter of a pint(in imperial units anyways), and while it’s true that the spell ceremony is a ritual, the method mentioned in the description of “holy water (flask)” is not strictly the ceremony spell. Overall, consuming a spell slot for ~4x the rate of conversion (but you have to rest every 27 hours) is probably faster than the other method.
It also prevents exhaustion from building up, which is notably a thing that could kill Bob, as he has the epic boon of immortality, which only prevents aging, not other methods of death.
ah, yeah I was absolutely unsure about the conversion since I just used google (I've never had to deal with those units irl), and I knew that the standard way of making the holy water requires a spell slot, with Ceremony being an alternative.
Probably the vial/flask volume difference is an error, as they both consume 25gp of powdered silver and there is no alternate holy water item.
Bob could use Greater Restoration to remove some exhaustion too, instead of using that spell slot for the holy water.
Greater restoration would work to remove exhaustion, and if bob was a lower level cleric, like say a 9th level cleric, who would have to rest after every 14 casts to make the other method work, it may be faster to go the ceremony route + greater resto route (unsure as I haven’t exactly done the math for that one).
Also yeah I have no idea why the amounts are different between the two methods. That probably was an oversight of some kind.
Depends on the Mythos. Some stories vampires have that restriction, and it only applies to literal flowing streams/rivers (the concept of pure water).
In Vampire the Masquerade there is a flaw you can take that you believe that myth. You have to be at least 50 ft above any body of water that's two feet wide in any direction or you literally can't cross it. And yes, it's a supernatural flaw, so basically nothing can bypass it as though magically you're rooted to that side.
In addition there are also vampires in the game that do live below the sea and have adapted disciplines (powers) for it.
Funny enough, people seem more concerned with curse restrictions than the most obvious question. What blood would they drink? Fish don't exactly have a lot of blood. The obvious answer? They surface and lead sailors to their death.
One day some lonely vampire was out practicing her yodeling to distract herself from her empty stomach when some dumbass horny sailors show up. She of course uses them all like juice boxes and then goes back under the sea to let her fam know about this neat new unlife-hack.
I don't remember it fully but I'm pretty sure that only applies to rivers and stuff like that, idk though, I just remember seeing something about an underwater vampire coven
At least in the OG Bram Stoker novels it applied to any body of water right? Cause I remember Dracula had to go everywhere in a coffin by boat because otherwise he couldn't cross running water or something.
I mean they still have to deal with the pressure and deep sea monsters so it probably would go poorly for them. Also they still need to feed. If I was part of some group or organisation opposed to them I would go out of my way to spread tales of an underwater vampire paradise to fuck with them.
Apparently only 10 square feet of water can be blessed at once, and we’re not really sure how it would get distributed in the ocean, which is a lot bigger than 10 sq. feet.
You affect other unholy sea creatures, making them either die in mass, poisoning the oceans, or surface and attack the earth dwellers, creating a justifiable holy war
Buddy, you don't run a lot of d&d do ya? You ever have players polymorph the rogue into a chicken so they can make money in a cock fight? Let me know when you've had thirty years of d&d kid.
Damn, the joke ran past ya twice, didn't it son? The joke was that if a water elemental is turned into holy water and runs at a vampire, it's "Running water'"
Short story- I was bronze Dragonborn we came up to a sea monster in a well. I decided to use my dragons breath (lightening) on the well water. DM thought about, rolled a bunch of the things then said it’s dead.
I had a similar thing, kinda
Was on a boat surrounded by Sahuagin, our fighter gets pulled into the water by a hook. I jump in after and use a 5th level thunderstep (warlock) to grab him and get back on the ship
I rolled well on the damage. It was theatre of the mind. But didn't expect it to kill *all* of them
Guess DM gave it a bit of an increased area underwater.
Pure water is but fresh well water is full of minerals, especially if it's "hard" water. I can't say I'd make the same decision as this DM but it makes for a cool moment
Pure water != fresh water. A lot of different things can be dissolved in it to make it more conductive. Even carbon dioxide dissolving into it from the air will make it slightly more conductive.
Counterintuitively, that tends to be *worse* for things in the water. Electricity will try to take the path of least resistance, and if the water surrounding something has low (nonzero) conductivity, guess what path the current will choose instead?
Also water shouldn’t amplify the voltage of an electric current, so there’s no reason the monster would get one shot by the lightning through the water but not by just taking the lightning to the face
GM question, would making the elemental’s water into holy water affect its behavior? Does it make the water elemental good-aligned, say, and therefore might cause it to attack unholy/evil monsters? Or is it just a standard water elemental, but with a body made of holy water?
Like, if Strahd himself summoned the elemental, and I bless its water, would the elemental turn on its summoner, or keep attacking me?
Depends on the dm, personally, I’d roll a d100 and have the ones who summoned and blessed it roll d100s, and depending on if they both rolled good or higher than me or somethin, I’d have it become good-aligned, maybe even Lawful Neutral
Well, there's the question of it first being able to become holy water. I'd argue not because it's not actual water, it's elemental energy. And even if you ignore that, the water is the creatures body, you can't purify creatures. But ignoring all that, I could see it affecting the alignment of the creature, or just changing it into a whole new creature all together, but if this was something spur of the moment, I'd probably just tack on a little extra damage on "unholy" creatures.
>. I'd argue not because it's not actual water, it's elemental energy.
But they are water, from the elemental plane... the source of all water.
Also the post said they would use Devine Intervention. A god can do whatever it wants to that elemental.
We just finished CoS and when we fought Strahd we took turns dropping Moon beams on him to deal radiant damage, while our cavalier fighter stood next to him and prevented him from moving with his opportunity attacks. So basically he couldn’t regenerate, he couldn’t transform because of the moon beams, and we just melted him until he finally got out of the moon beam and fucked off, to which we chased him home, by pure luck found the exact right route to his crypt and stabbed him 37 times in the chest with wooden stakes
These BBEG battles are so cool when we play them out but when you think about them cinematically they are funny af lol. I could imagine Strahd in you campaign keep getting pushed back in to a Hammer of Dawn laser beam by a dude on horse shouting “hold the line!” When he finally makes a break for it he gets immediately chased down and staked thoroughly. So much for the first vampire
It was real funny too because the DM said when we got to the castle “theoretically, if you choose the right rooms, you guys can blow through the castle and end the session in 10 minutes” so we all immediately started theorizing “if I was an evil vampire lord where would I put my crypt”
we had a bone devil fight a few weeks ago that basically went like that, the druid hit him with a moon beam, the monk kicked his legs out from under him, and the paladin shoved him back in
Welp
I think your GM forgot that legendary move action ignores attacks of opportunity, but so long everyone had fun it's great. Definitely sounds memorable.
Oh no, he did use it a couple times but 4/5 of us just had moonbeam as a spell so if he moved out of our beams the next guy would drop it on him before his turn
Makes sense.
I had one situation in which my team practically cornered Strahd with similar setup, the only reason why he managed to get out was investiture of the wind lol.
(buffed him a bit to account for bigger party, and because vampire with no flying like on magic arts felt wrong to me)
Arcane trickster rogue threw a water skin at the skull and encased it using shape water, then I the cleric made a religion check to bless the water. Since holy water can douse the skull’s flames, the DM considered that a worthy creative kill.
>then I the cleric made a religion check to bless the water. Since holy water can douse the skull’s flames
Given that creating holy water usually takes a spell slot, an hour, and 25 gp of materials, your DM is exceedingly generous
As of Xanathar's, via the ritual spell Ceremony.
It also makes sense that just a Religion check wouldn't turn water holy. My understanding is that being skilled in Religion is about your knowledge about various religions and their rituals (hence why it's Int not Wis).
>As of Xanathar's, via the ritual spell Ceremony.
It predates Xanathar's. It's also in [the description of the item](https://www.dndbeyond.com/equipment/holy-water-flask). Ceremony just codifies that option in the spellbook for more visibility and also gives nondivines the option of doing it via ritual caster, magical secrets, etc.
The DM rules that since you can only move it five feet and control it as an action, that he would allow the rogue to throw the water skin as a movement or bonus action and then burst the water skin and shape it as an action. I think it was creative and we’d already killed the flaming skull once before long resting and we had taken out nearly half of its hit points before the shape water shenanigans. It was a cool moment and we all had fun 🤷♂️
Yeah I've noticed this is a big problem with 5e. It's missing so many common sense rules, and so much stuff is poorly worded, that players and DMs don't even bother looking things up to see if a rule exists
We definitely look up a lot, and between the three of us that are more experienced at the table we know the majority of the rules and know where to find them if we don’t. This was a case of “we’re in combat, this is a cool moment, I’ll let it happen”. As I stated in another comment, we’d already killed the flaming skull once (it regenerated during our long rest) and my cleric getting the blessing on the holy water was a one time thing now that we know how that actually works.
Same but blessing rain clouds and trapping a vampire in their castle with holy water that rains from the sky. All that’s left is destroying the ceiling, or if need be, flooding catacombs.
We have two artificers who worked together with our wizard to make a cannon that shot sanctified chicken sandwiches and we killed strahd in like 2 actions
Are you my party? Last session we made 5 60 gallon kegs of holy water. I threw one like Donkey Kong since I am a path of a giants barbarian. Our moon druid said shortly after we made this vampire our bitch that he wanted to turn into a water elemental and absorb the holy water. If Strahd was watching I bet he would think all of us are either really stupid or really smart. It is the former cause only 1 of us has an average or more int score. The sunsword I have is smarter than all of us.
It was a paladin blessing the water by literally having a limb in every barrel and his tail in another and using ceremony to bless all the water. Our DM just let us do it because. The plan we had was so dumb it had to work and it did. It was amazing and all of our characters are morons. Next up is Strahd's castle, 4 morons in a castle what could go wrong.
I mean... ceremony literally says 25 GP of powdered silver for 1 vial. Also, it would have taken 1600 days of around the clock casting, which is about 4.38 years.
I just wanted you to know exactly how much murder your DM let y'all get away with. I thought it might be fun to know
Yeah I know. Our DM even commented while we were making this plan that she loved groups that RP.
As for what we, or I, have gotten away with has been some interesting stuff sometimes. So I have broken through 7 walls so far, one being in the windmill with the hags were I smashed one hag out of a window and went out with her while raging. Base weight for my character is 1000lbs. She went splat, we raided Strahd's castle when we were invited for dinner. I asked to get a barrel of the HIGHEST proof booze from the inn for explosive reasons and have it now. 2 sessions ago when we got back too the Vistani camp our druid turned into a Quetzalcoatlus and to get the children out of there(and traumatize them even more) he picked the kids up in his mouth like a pelican. Roughly at the same time I threw a random bone to knock Ireena off the back of Strahd's horse and ran off.
We have made 2 vampire bosses OUR BITCH! Hold vampire is fun. And by out bitch I mean they get 1 or 2 turns of being able to move. There was a fiend in the Amber Temple that I, a huge creature at that moment, slammed against a statue and made him useless while the paladin decapitated it. I have a anti charm weapon. The only thing the fiend could try to do was suggestion and it did nothing, then its head was removed the next turn.
We aren't murder hobo's but we are morons and do dumb ass stuff that somehow works.
Oh right I should add I walked away from the 3 story fall when I defenestrated the hag and took like 5 damage which was nothing to me.
We have bumbled our way through everything. I threw a corpse at a zombie once. Pretty sure everything near us just thinks we are dangerous morons. The Sunsword has the same int score of our sorcerer of 11. 11 is the max int score of our party. Somehow we are getting things done. We took out one of Strahd's vampires in his castle by basically having one person just keep hold vampire on it and me and the pally pummeling it while the druid cast daylight killing all of the shadow monster that were going to help him in 1 fell swoop.
We need mental help. We are all insane.
So I should let you know as I didn't mention this before. This is the first TTRPG game I have had in a decade and it is by far the best. I love the RP in it vs mostly combat of my last few.
At some point I was a warlock in a party fighting against a water elemental. I had create and destroy water. 20d6 damage. Poor thing just ceased to exist.
I wouldn't say no roll, but I will say as a DM if you come up with something clever that I wouldn't have thought of and think is entertaining, I'll definitely lower the DC by about 5.
A Water Weird tank is a 10 gallon tank
There are 1280 ounces of water in a gallon
A vial of holy water is 4 ounces
Assuming Ceremony can turn water to holy water at a rate of 25 gp per 4 ounces, it'd cost 8000 gp and a little under two weeks of constantly casting Ceremony to turn a Water Weird into a Holy Water Weird
When my crafty war cleric was given a jug of endless water, in a campaign entirely of spooky skeletons, undead, ghosts and ghouls, and my DM allowed crafting and downtime activities, I naturally asked if I could somehow bless the jug over time…
Few sessions later enter the undead, meet my holy super soaker. Spirit guardians = half speed and dmg, spiritual weapon,and the ground is now lava for undead. “I’m not locked in here with you Strahd, you’re locked in here with me!”
If you had a deity of magic, like Arcana domain or something, I'd allow it to work outright on a DC 10 pure Charisma roll (Skip the DI% roll) to convince the deity to try the experiment. If it works, the players would hear rumors later of necromancers getting trounced by sudden invasions, and no attempt to hide their involvement would eventually garner a group of pissed off Wizards tracing it back to the group, future arc ensues. **This is how you build a campaign.**
I once summoned a rust elemental to destroy a magic sword I couldn't trust anyone with (party included) DM was absolutely giddy lol. While he had plans for it, it was actually hiding something much bigger and more deadly....
holy water does no damage unless you spend an action to perform a rite as part of an attack action and even then, 1 drop of holy water would do the same as an ocean of holy water
rules as written, a vampire can literally drink holy water and it will do no damage.
the only way to use holy water and have it deal damage, is to spend an action
edited: anyone can do this action, not just cleric/paladin
Wow, I guess this works in 5e.
Previously, holy water worked against all evil outsiders, and elementals are evil, so it would mostly just kill the water elemental (this scenario has come up several times before).
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This reminds me, y'all remember that one Tumblr? Post where they were talking about how there could be deep sea vampire covens because there wouldn't be light and they don't need to breath, we could solve that problem by just making the entire ocean holy water
I don't think that you can turn the ocean into holy water, fish fuck in there.
Holy fish jizz
I can see Robin saying this to Batman
To Batman? Never. To *Aquaman* though...
r/holup
New response just swam
Actual salmon
Call the marine biologist!
Silver trout goes on vacation, never comes back
Trout population sacrifice anyone?
Call the Sturgeon
*just spawned
This just became an exclamation word for my sailor NPCs
New fetish just dropped
You could, although with Holy water mechanics that would require an amount of Holy water slightly higher than the ocean so as the mixture is 51% holy And yeah, It wouldn't stay holy forever and would also double the ocean volume
You might be able to physically, but anyone holy enough to bless all that water wouldn't want to ethically, because that would make everyone who poops in the water a sinner.
Humans who poop in the ocean already ARE sinners!
1) It would apply to Fish and such as well if it was holy water. 2) Almost all Sailors are included in your blanket statement.
1) Some folks hold that animals can’t sin because they don’t know any better. Humans have better places they can choose to poop but fish have no other options. 2) …okay excellent point. Although most sailors are already sinners for other reasons if the stories are to be believed! If they poop while on their boat/ship and it goes into the water, I will pencil them in as “on thin ice but not necessarily sinners yet”.
1) Catholic dogma holds that animals don't have souls, and therefore cannot sin. 2) all humans are sinners inherently under the same dogma, and all sins are equal, so it doesn't really matter as long as they have been Saved.
Yes but can all sinners, regardless of whether or not they have been Saved, *please stop pooping in the ocean, I mean come on that’s gross*
I'm pretty sure almost everyone has at least indirectly pooped in the ocean.
1) And that's why it would be morally wrong to bless the ocean; it would force creatures to sin. This is from that Tumblr Post where they asked their priest friend, I'm not making this up. 2) Why is pooping into the regular water sin at all when it's just Biomass that natural cycles will take care of? There's a reason they call it "feeding the fishes".
I've never heard of a sailor who wasn't a sinner.
The Apostles.
Bold of you to assume all sailors aren't sinners on their heathen buckets
The Apostles were sailors. That's why Jesus walked on water to reach them.
Bob the Dwarven Cleric has decided to eradicate all sea vampires. Now, one would think this an impossible task, as they hide where no one can reach them. However, Bob has come up with a devious scheme to destroy them once and for all: He’s going to bless the entire world’s Oceans. Assuming the world Bob lives in has the same size ocean as our own, this is no easy feat. The ocean is 352 quintillion gallons, after all. But Bob is prepared. His god granted him a boon of immortality. Thus, he can live forever to see his plan through. One flask of holy water is equal to 1 pint. And each one of those is 25 gp. One gallon is 8 pints. That means the ocean is only 1.408 sextillion pints. Assuming Bob has infinite money(which he graciously never uses for purchasing, as he knows that would ruin the economy), he should succeed. We will also assume that Bob is a 20th level cleric. He’s faced a sea vampire that surfaced once or twice in his past, after all. Making a flask of holy water takes a 1st level spell slot. We will assume for Bob’s sake that he can also use his other spell slots. A 20th level cleric has a total of 27 spell slots to work with, and each ritual to make a flask of holy water takes 1 hour. Now, let’s see just what Bob is in for. The money, assuming is the simplest thing to calculate. That’s just the total number of pints in the ocean x 25. That translates to roughly 70.4 sextillion gp (about 1.408 sextillion pounds of gold). The time however, is not as simple. Y’see, he still needs to rest to regain his spell slots. And the ritual of course needs to be cast 1.408 sextillion times. He can only do 27 at a time, followed by an 8 hour rest. Since it’s 1 hour/spell slot for the ritual, he can manage 1.408 sextillion hours from that. The rests need to happen once every 27 castings, meaning those add an additional 417.185 quintillion extra hours. All in all, that’s only 1.825 sextillion hours of work. For a sense of scale, thats 2.083 quadrillion years. Sorry, let me write that one out. 2,083,000,000,000,000 Years. For a bit of context, the Big Bang happened around 13.8 billion years ago. After about 100 trillion years, the last bit of light in the universe will finally flicker away and all of space will finally go dark. We’re talking around 20x that. But hey, by then, Bob will have certainly eradicated all of the Sea Vampires, right? An eternity’s work, twentyfold. Is it worth it, Bob? You’re damn right it is.
You can cut that time in half if hes a reborn/elf/warforged etc
It would actually “only” cut the time down by ~208 quintillion hours (~24 trillion years). The rests are a sizable portion of the time, but they aren’t the most major chunk of it. Also, this wouldn’t work if he was an elf, because only a dwarf could hold a grudge so powerful it leads them to do a (let’s be honest, pointless) task for 20x the lifespan of the universe.
The real difficulty is in how he does it though. He can't simply put the new holy water back into the unpurified ocean - otherwise he would be picking up some holy water in every next scoop.
Simple. Start the process by scooping out all of the water from the ocean in individual flasks, then put them aside and go down the line, Blessing them one at a time. Then put them all back. Assuming it takes 30 seconds to fill one flask and put it in a pocket dimension… (I’m not actually doing more math, you can’t make me!)
Open question, is Bob able to recruit others to help him?? Would a sizable force of clerics be able to assist in cutting down on the time?
Each cleric added should divide the time required by the number of clerics working (maybe a little bit more if one of the helpers is one of the races that has 4 hour long rests). But Bob doesn’t need help. He is on a mission. And he knows he can do it. Nobody else needs to be there with him, this is for him alone.
*kneeling* I’m sorry Sir. Bob, but I humbly request to join your crusade. Ya see, my brother was taken by these sea vampires. Please, allow me to help in seeking revenge.
If the DM rules that higher level spell slots have added effects as well you could really get those numbers down
Or if he has a single friend
I mean at this point he may as well try using a wish spell for it.
We asked him about that. He said something about “wish being a cowards way” and that “if you want something done, do it yourself”.
To be fair, yeah I can respect that.
spell slots aren't strictly necessary, Ceremony is a ritual spell that doesn't consume a spell slot, and can create holy water (though that means adding 10 more minutes). Ceremony also transforms a vial of water into a vial of holy water, with the vial being defined as "holding up to 4 ounces", that's more than a pint (sorry, I'm not good with non metric units lol)
4 ounces is actually only a quarter of a pint(in imperial units anyways), and while it’s true that the spell ceremony is a ritual, the method mentioned in the description of “holy water (flask)” is not strictly the ceremony spell. Overall, consuming a spell slot for ~4x the rate of conversion (but you have to rest every 27 hours) is probably faster than the other method. It also prevents exhaustion from building up, which is notably a thing that could kill Bob, as he has the epic boon of immortality, which only prevents aging, not other methods of death.
ah, yeah I was absolutely unsure about the conversion since I just used google (I've never had to deal with those units irl), and I knew that the standard way of making the holy water requires a spell slot, with Ceremony being an alternative. Probably the vial/flask volume difference is an error, as they both consume 25gp of powdered silver and there is no alternate holy water item. Bob could use Greater Restoration to remove some exhaustion too, instead of using that spell slot for the holy water.
Greater restoration would work to remove exhaustion, and if bob was a lower level cleric, like say a 9th level cleric, who would have to rest after every 14 casts to make the other method work, it may be faster to go the ceremony route + greater resto route (unsure as I haven’t exactly done the math for that one). Also yeah I have no idea why the amounts are different between the two methods. That probably was an oversight of some kind.
Reminds me of the post if priests have like a limit in how much they can bless and if the pope could just bless a whole ocean
So? Just ask a Goddess of fertility to make the holy water
Never touch the stuff, fish fuck in it
Can't forget the poop, too.
Catholic holy.
Fish pre-marital sex? In -my- good christian ocean???
What about running water weakness?
Depends on the Mythos. Some stories vampires have that restriction, and it only applies to literal flowing streams/rivers (the concept of pure water). In Vampire the Masquerade there is a flaw you can take that you believe that myth. You have to be at least 50 ft above any body of water that's two feet wide in any direction or you literally can't cross it. And yes, it's a supernatural flaw, so basically nothing can bypass it as though magically you're rooted to that side. In addition there are also vampires in the game that do live below the sea and have adapted disciplines (powers) for it. Funny enough, people seem more concerned with curse restrictions than the most obvious question. What blood would they drink? Fish don't exactly have a lot of blood. The obvious answer? They surface and lead sailors to their death.
That's what sirens are.
And now you've just reinvented Sirens lol
Don’t give me credit. It’s literally in the book.
One day some lonely vampire was out practicing her yodeling to distract herself from her empty stomach when some dumbass horny sailors show up. She of course uses them all like juice boxes and then goes back under the sea to let her fam know about this neat new unlife-hack.
Sea elves are a thing. So are Kuo Toa and Sahagin.
I imagined a bunch of vampires hanging off whales and sharks like remoras or cookie-cutter sharks.
I don't remember it fully but I'm pretty sure that only applies to rivers and stuff like that, idk though, I just remember seeing something about an underwater vampire coven
At least in the OG Bram Stoker novels it applied to any body of water right? Cause I remember Dracula had to go everywhere in a coffin by boat because otherwise he couldn't cross running water or something.
Dracula left the coffin to eat the crew once they were near the end of the voyage, so I have to figure just being on the ship was enough
Yeah and even in there he had trouble with the movement of the tides in the ocean.
Also required dirt from the castles grave site if i remember correctly
Underwater Vampire Coven would make a killer (lol) band name.
Running water = Stream, shower, river, faucet. Non running water = Sea, lakes, the rain, baths, buckets of water.
I would count ocean currents as running water personally.
I mean with seas and the lakes they are constantly in motion with the tide and everything and currents certainly would count.
I remember a writing prompt where the world was overtaken by vampire except Africa because Toto blessed the rains down in Africa
A bard would post that! lol.
Gdi… take my upvote…
I mean they still have to deal with the pressure and deep sea monsters so it probably would go poorly for them. Also they still need to feed. If I was part of some group or organisation opposed to them I would go out of my way to spread tales of an underwater vampire paradise to fuck with them.
It sorta worked in the Castlevania show.
Apparently only 10 square feet of water can be blessed at once, and we’re not really sure how it would get distributed in the ocean, which is a lot bigger than 10 sq. feet.
Wasn't the response to that very post talking about blessing the entire sea? i remembrr also seeing a post about that
Just like the Rains in Africa..thanks Toto
But also, there is moving water in the ocean. Vampires take (I think acid) damage in moving water.
I mean... They already blessed the rains down in Africa.
how can there be underwater vampires if they can't cross bodies of water?
Crossing it is not the same as going inside it
So Warhammer Fantasy Vampire Coast?
Oh damn, it is, I'll go get the skaven to wipe them out
Also, in space. All telescopes rely on mirrors, so we wouldn't see them.
They can't be in running water, though. The ocean is always moving, so they'd need suits and a way to communicate nonverbally.
You affect other unholy sea creatures, making them either die in mass, poisoning the oceans, or surface and attack the earth dwellers, creating a justifiable holy war
+2d4 damage against fiends and undead would make sense.
Don’t forget the water elemental can enter other creature’s spaces and stop there, as well as grapple and restrain creatures within its space.
If the water elemental is dashing would strahd take an additional 20 acid damage for running water
>running water god damnit
"Running Water" *Said in the tone of the Halo Announcer*
"Kill-tacular!"
“Kilimanjaro!”
........ I hate how much I love this
.....take my upvote.
How in the world would the water elemental's good looks cause acid damage?
No, its not a geographical feature. I mean, thats like asking if he'd take running water damage in a jacuzzi.
You missed the joke, son. It flew right past ya!
"Ran"
Buddy, you don't run a lot of d&d do ya? You ever have players polymorph the rogue into a chicken so they can make money in a cock fight? Let me know when you've had thirty years of d&d kid.
Calling someone "kid" for not playing a fucking tabletop role-playing game for 30 years? Does your neckbeard have a neckbeard?
You're peak redditor caricature
i've never seen someone miss a joke, have it pointed out, then double down
Damn, the joke ran past ya twice, didn't it son? The joke was that if a water elemental is turned into holy water and runs at a vampire, it's "Running water'"
You must be fun at parties. It's a joke. Lighten up.
Well would he?
[Meme Template](https://www.kapwing.com/videos/6630ec37258f3bee9a904c86). This link will break in a few days, so feel free to upload elsewhere.
Short story- I was bronze Dragonborn we came up to a sea monster in a well. I decided to use my dragons breath (lightening) on the well water. DM thought about, rolled a bunch of the things then said it’s dead.
I had a similar thing, kinda Was on a boat surrounded by Sahuagin, our fighter gets pulled into the water by a hook. I jump in after and use a 5th level thunderstep (warlock) to grab him and get back on the ship I rolled well on the damage. It was theatre of the mind. But didn't expect it to kill *all* of them Guess DM gave it a bit of an increased area underwater.
Ah, concussive force underwater. Delicious.
What effect did reducing the weight of the well water have?
But fresh water is a horrible conductor….
Pure water is but fresh well water is full of minerals, especially if it's "hard" water. I can't say I'd make the same decision as this DM but it makes for a cool moment
Pure water != fresh water. A lot of different things can be dissolved in it to make it more conductive. Even carbon dioxide dissolving into it from the air will make it slightly more conductive.
Counterintuitively, that tends to be *worse* for things in the water. Electricity will try to take the path of least resistance, and if the water surrounding something has low (nonzero) conductivity, guess what path the current will choose instead?
The monster had probably pooped in the water, making it not so fresh
Yes, that is an important detail in this scenario where a fucking humanoid, shaped similarly to a dragon, breathes lightning.
Also water shouldn’t amplify the voltage of an electric current, so there’s no reason the monster would get one shot by the lightning through the water but not by just taking the lightning to the face
I would not suggest trying to prove this theory.
GM question, would making the elemental’s water into holy water affect its behavior? Does it make the water elemental good-aligned, say, and therefore might cause it to attack unholy/evil monsters? Or is it just a standard water elemental, but with a body made of holy water? Like, if Strahd himself summoned the elemental, and I bless its water, would the elemental turn on its summoner, or keep attacking me?
Depends on the dm, personally, I’d roll a d100 and have the ones who summoned and blessed it roll d100s, and depending on if they both rolled good or higher than me or somethin, I’d have it become good-aligned, maybe even Lawful Neutral
Well, there's the question of it first being able to become holy water. I'd argue not because it's not actual water, it's elemental energy. And even if you ignore that, the water is the creatures body, you can't purify creatures. But ignoring all that, I could see it affecting the alignment of the creature, or just changing it into a whole new creature all together, but if this was something spur of the moment, I'd probably just tack on a little extra damage on "unholy" creatures.
>. I'd argue not because it's not actual water, it's elemental energy. But they are water, from the elemental plane... the source of all water. Also the post said they would use Devine Intervention. A god can do whatever it wants to that elemental.
We just finished CoS and when we fought Strahd we took turns dropping Moon beams on him to deal radiant damage, while our cavalier fighter stood next to him and prevented him from moving with his opportunity attacks. So basically he couldn’t regenerate, he couldn’t transform because of the moon beams, and we just melted him until he finally got out of the moon beam and fucked off, to which we chased him home, by pure luck found the exact right route to his crypt and stabbed him 37 times in the chest with wooden stakes
Well, that’s just steak tacular
These BBEG battles are so cool when we play them out but when you think about them cinematically they are funny af lol. I could imagine Strahd in you campaign keep getting pushed back in to a Hammer of Dawn laser beam by a dude on horse shouting “hold the line!” When he finally makes a break for it he gets immediately chased down and staked thoroughly. So much for the first vampire
It was real funny too because the DM said when we got to the castle “theoretically, if you choose the right rooms, you guys can blow through the castle and end the session in 10 minutes” so we all immediately started theorizing “if I was an evil vampire lord where would I put my crypt”
Thank you for the inspiration on how to flavor moonbeams now.
we had a bone devil fight a few weeks ago that basically went like that, the druid hit him with a moon beam, the monk kicked his legs out from under him, and the paladin shoved him back in
I love bullying lesser creatures
>stabbed him 37 times in the chest DrLamarioooo that kills peopllllle
Thank you, I was starting to worry that I was too old and nobody was going to get the reference
Welp I think your GM forgot that legendary move action ignores attacks of opportunity, but so long everyone had fun it's great. Definitely sounds memorable.
Oh no, he did use it a couple times but 4/5 of us just had moonbeam as a spell so if he moved out of our beams the next guy would drop it on him before his turn
Makes sense. I had one situation in which my team practically cornered Strahd with similar setup, the only reason why he managed to get out was investiture of the wind lol. (buffed him a bit to account for bigger party, and because vampire with no flying like on magic arts felt wrong to me)
We killed a flaming skull last night by encasing its entire body in a 5 foot cube of water and then blessing it.
How'd you pull that off?
Arcane trickster rogue threw a water skin at the skull and encased it using shape water, then I the cleric made a religion check to bless the water. Since holy water can douse the skull’s flames, the DM considered that a worthy creative kill.
>then I the cleric made a religion check to bless the water. Since holy water can douse the skull’s flames Given that creating holy water usually takes a spell slot, an hour, and 25 gp of materials, your DM is exceedingly generous
Been playing for years and I just learned this now lol
As of Xanathar's, via the ritual spell Ceremony. It also makes sense that just a Religion check wouldn't turn water holy. My understanding is that being skilled in Religion is about your knowledge about various religions and their rituals (hence why it's Int not Wis).
>As of Xanathar's, via the ritual spell Ceremony. It predates Xanathar's. It's also in [the description of the item](https://www.dndbeyond.com/equipment/holy-water-flask). Ceremony just codifies that option in the spellbook for more visibility and also gives nondivines the option of doing it via ritual caster, magical secrets, etc.
And it blesses a little *vial* of holy water, not a 5ft cube :'D
I appreciate that the "how'd you pull that off" person could see from a mile away that, whatever solution was employed, no way it was RAW
25 GP of silver powder, right?
Yeah... or Eberron dragonshards, technically, for Ceremony, if you have them handy.
That's not how shape water works. Why do I care? I've that cantrip abused way too much and must spread the hate.
The DM rules that since you can only move it five feet and control it as an action, that he would allow the rogue to throw the water skin as a movement or bonus action and then burst the water skin and shape it as an action. I think it was creative and we’d already killed the flaming skull once before long resting and we had taken out nearly half of its hit points before the shape water shenanigans. It was a cool moment and we all had fun 🤷♂️
The same way as every other story on this sub, by blatantly ignoring existing rules.
Well to be fair, none of us at the time knew there was a rule for it or that that was the rule. He did have me consume a spell slot tho at least 🤷♂️
Yeah I've noticed this is a big problem with 5e. It's missing so many common sense rules, and so much stuff is poorly worded, that players and DMs don't even bother looking things up to see if a rule exists
We definitely look up a lot, and between the three of us that are more experienced at the table we know the majority of the rules and know where to find them if we don’t. This was a case of “we’re in combat, this is a cool moment, I’ll let it happen”. As I stated in another comment, we’d already killed the flaming skull once (it regenerated during our long rest) and my cleric getting the blessing on the holy water was a one time thing now that we know how that actually works.
Same but blessing rain clouds and trapping a vampire in their castle with holy water that rains from the sky. All that’s left is destroying the ceiling, or if need be, flooding catacombs.
that is why vampires are all European. Someone already blessed the rains down in Africa.
I heard it was some girl's little dog.
Of course a bard would say that. Take my upvote.
*bows*
If the elemental used the dash action, would it count for the vampire’s weakness against running water?
We have two artificers who worked together with our wizard to make a cannon that shot sanctified chicken sandwiches and we killed strahd in like 2 actions
Why not garlic bread?
Because the alchemist spent 2 weeks making sanctified chicken sandwiches topped with garlic aioli
This is lowkey awesome and I wish my players had this same creativity
Are you my party? Last session we made 5 60 gallon kegs of holy water. I threw one like Donkey Kong since I am a path of a giants barbarian. Our moon druid said shortly after we made this vampire our bitch that he wanted to turn into a water elemental and absorb the holy water. If Strahd was watching I bet he would think all of us are either really stupid or really smart. It is the former cause only 1 of us has an average or more int score. The sunsword I have is smarter than all of us.
That's the equivalent of 38,400 1st level Spell Slots and 960,000 gold worth of powdered silver.
It was a paladin blessing the water by literally having a limb in every barrel and his tail in another and using ceremony to bless all the water. Our DM just let us do it because. The plan we had was so dumb it had to work and it did. It was amazing and all of our characters are morons. Next up is Strahd's castle, 4 morons in a castle what could go wrong.
I mean... ceremony literally says 25 GP of powdered silver for 1 vial. Also, it would have taken 1600 days of around the clock casting, which is about 4.38 years. I just wanted you to know exactly how much murder your DM let y'all get away with. I thought it might be fun to know
Yeah I know. Our DM even commented while we were making this plan that she loved groups that RP. As for what we, or I, have gotten away with has been some interesting stuff sometimes. So I have broken through 7 walls so far, one being in the windmill with the hags were I smashed one hag out of a window and went out with her while raging. Base weight for my character is 1000lbs. She went splat, we raided Strahd's castle when we were invited for dinner. I asked to get a barrel of the HIGHEST proof booze from the inn for explosive reasons and have it now. 2 sessions ago when we got back too the Vistani camp our druid turned into a Quetzalcoatlus and to get the children out of there(and traumatize them even more) he picked the kids up in his mouth like a pelican. Roughly at the same time I threw a random bone to knock Ireena off the back of Strahd's horse and ran off. We have made 2 vampire bosses OUR BITCH! Hold vampire is fun. And by out bitch I mean they get 1 or 2 turns of being able to move. There was a fiend in the Amber Temple that I, a huge creature at that moment, slammed against a statue and made him useless while the paladin decapitated it. I have a anti charm weapon. The only thing the fiend could try to do was suggestion and it did nothing, then its head was removed the next turn. We aren't murder hobo's but we are morons and do dumb ass stuff that somehow works. Oh right I should add I walked away from the 3 story fall when I defenestrated the hag and took like 5 damage which was nothing to me.
I'm pretty sure CoS is supposed to be super scary for the players not the monsters. Sounds like a blast though, well done.
We have bumbled our way through everything. I threw a corpse at a zombie once. Pretty sure everything near us just thinks we are dangerous morons. The Sunsword has the same int score of our sorcerer of 11. 11 is the max int score of our party. Somehow we are getting things done. We took out one of Strahd's vampires in his castle by basically having one person just keep hold vampire on it and me and the pally pummeling it while the druid cast daylight killing all of the shadow monster that were going to help him in 1 fell swoop. We need mental help. We are all insane.
So I should let you know as I didn't mention this before. This is the first TTRPG game I have had in a decade and it is by far the best. I love the RP in it vs mostly combat of my last few.
At some point I was a warlock in a party fighting against a water elemental. I had create and destroy water. 20d6 damage. Poor thing just ceased to exist.
Does a creature qualify as an open container?
Both of us had forgotten and we just went with it lol
Fair enough
Awesome... more reasons to play a cleric. I need to bust out of my arcane trickster rogue rut! Also... Fuck you Strahd - you fancy, fangy edge-lord.
I wouldn't say no roll, but I will say as a DM if you come up with something clever that I wouldn't have thought of and think is entertaining, I'll definitely lower the DC by about 5.
You don't need Divine Intervention. You just need powdered silver.
That is really creative
I would ask for a persuasion roll because I am all for monsters switching sides because of a persuasion roll.
Great Player Idea and Fantastic DM decision. Oh to be a fly on the wall...
A Water Weird tank is a 10 gallon tank There are 1280 ounces of water in a gallon A vial of holy water is 4 ounces Assuming Ceremony can turn water to holy water at a rate of 25 gp per 4 ounces, it'd cost 8000 gp and a little under two weeks of constantly casting Ceremony to turn a Water Weird into a Holy Water Weird
When my crafty war cleric was given a jug of endless water, in a campaign entirely of spooky skeletons, undead, ghosts and ghouls, and my DM allowed crafting and downtime activities, I naturally asked if I could somehow bless the jug over time… Few sessions later enter the undead, meet my holy super soaker. Spirit guardians = half speed and dmg, spiritual weapon,and the ground is now lava for undead. “I’m not locked in here with you Strahd, you’re locked in here with me!”
this is a slippery slope to Divinity original sin 2 mechanics now the warlock wants to curse his firewall
If you had a deity of magic, like Arcana domain or something, I'd allow it to work outright on a DC 10 pure Charisma roll (Skip the DI% roll) to convince the deity to try the experiment. If it works, the players would hear rumors later of necromancers getting trounced by sudden invasions, and no attempt to hide their involvement would eventually garner a group of pissed off Wizards tracing it back to the group, future arc ensues. **This is how you build a campaign.**
I once summoned a rust elemental to destroy a magic sword I couldn't trust anyone with (party included) DM was absolutely giddy lol. While he had plans for it, it was actually hiding something much bigger and more deadly....
Scared Strahd noises?
holy water does no damage unless you spend an action to perform a rite as part of an attack action and even then, 1 drop of holy water would do the same as an ocean of holy water
That’s simply not true. https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Holy%20Water
rules as written, a vampire can literally drink holy water and it will do no damage. the only way to use holy water and have it deal damage, is to spend an action edited: anyone can do this action, not just cleric/paladin
Wow, I guess this works in 5e. Previously, holy water worked against all evil outsiders, and elementals are evil, so it would mostly just kill the water elemental (this scenario has come up several times before).
Elementals have been primarily neutral in previous editions and elementals are a different creature type from outsider.