canyonwalker | (Reply)

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Belated note here, but I wanted to add for the sake of anyone referring back to this later (including me!) that the players made a shrewd judgment in choosing to let the vampire get away. They inferred from how easily they turned him that he was just another minion and not the ultimate villain— or one of the ultimate villains. Indeed, the vamp's primary purpose was D&D: Distract and Divide.

* Distract: The vamp's plan was to make spoiling attacks against the PCs in the foyer. This would split their attention and resources off from the PCs in the inner sanctum, tilting some advantage to the powerful wraith in there and the dead bodies it was guarding. He was always going to flee as soon as he was beaten, not wanting to be destroyed and hoping that maybe he could fool at least one of the PCs into giving chase.

* Divide: Anyone who pursued the vampire would not only deprive the remainder of the group of their abilities in the primary fight against the wraith but would expose themselves to extreme risk delving deeper into the cursed temple with its presumed traps and unknown denizens lurking in the darkness.