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[Nil Eyeglazed]

This is partly a suggestion, and partly a query to the DF folks about the best way to do it.

So, all this talk about vampires has me thinking about some of the stuff that Toady hasn't yet talked about dealing with: can't enter without invitation, repelled by the cross, by garlic, can't cross running water.  I think Toady wants vampires to be procedurally generated such that all of the things involved in real legends are at least possible, but sort of randomly determined.

Of course, there's vulnerabilities, but it's not like anybody's going to have a +garlic halberd+ right?

So I was starting to think about pathing restrictions for certain creatures-- cursed creatures, for sure, maybe other creatures.

There's loads of awesome stuff you could do with this, that would lead to fun discovery in-game: like the vampires in your world can't stand fisher berries, that they can't stand images of two flasks or of Zuglar contemplating (because the image of the cross stuff isn't really appropriate), that they can't walk over running water, can't walk over running magma, can't go through an unopened door, can't walk over a piccolo-- you get the picture, it could be cool figuring out what you needed to do, and discovering some accidental sanctuary.

But the part that I was thinking about was the details.  Could you do some kind of pathing cost?  That would make it so vampires could be forced over garlic, but they'd take almost any other route in preference.  Could you just ban a certain creature from a square, make him jump back and recalculate path?  That seems like it might be problematic if there were two bane squares next to each other, with the vampire just pathing alternately between them uselessly.  Could you treat bane squares as locked doors, impassible, not to be pathed through?  Not sure how pathing works, if it would be difficult to notify each square of a "do not path vampires" every time you dropped some garlic on it.

And what about combat?  Would carrying fisher berries make the vampire jump back, fail in all attacks?  It would be uncommon enough in dwarf mode, but exploitable in adventurer mode-- once you learned the secret, at least.  Maybe it should be exploitable?  Should it just autofail vampire charges, as they can't enter your square?  Or should it have no effect?

I think this has the potential to be really interesting, the sort of thing that makes a player feel smart when he or she figures it out and exploits it.  It's not just about vampires-- i think bogeymen and clowns would both benefit from procedurally generated banes like this.  I mean, how cool would it be to realize that your engravings formed a tiny square of protection?  (Now all you have to do is get your dwarves to stay there.)  It would also have the potential to draw flavorful things (crafts, images, etc) into gameplay.  An amulet might suddenly become very important to a player, depending on what it depicted.

[Dae]

I've always thought of a vampire being repelled by a cross s being absolutely ridiculous. If I was a vampire, the only chance it could help you would be if I decided I won't drink from someone stupid enough to think THAT would help.

I think it was in a TV show "True blood" that not only vampires can't enter a home if the owner deny them the right to do so, but they are sucked out by a magical vacuum cleaner if they are already inside when the owner wants them out... Plus, the owner is legally defined by the law of that place...'
The "I can't cross running water" is almost as ridiculous as this...
Vampires being repelled or allergic to garlic is a common theme, and Toady has already implemented material weakness for the werewolf/silver thing. I absolutely agree that we should have protective talismans or some delicate conditions (like "this monster can't be killed except with a sword incrusted with zircon").

The pathing costs are negligeable in adventure mode due to the round-per-round nature of the mode. For fortress mode, we could accomodate by saying a creature will add a certain "danger" factor to creatures wearing protective spells, the same one that decides if an ennemy runs away after being wounded.
Under a certain threshold, it would only affect the order of preference concerning which to attack, above that they will run away if they can, as it already happens.

We could also use protective totems in fortress mode, that would set the pathing cost much higher near them so they'll try to avoid them. Or these totems could have multiple effects, such as a vampire being spotted if he comes near it, or a totem that makes said creature to go berserk.

In another line, it would be great if vampires had a few other "flavoury" caracteristics, such as no suffering from cave adaptation or at the contrary a much worse reaction, if they have a better nightvision, if they refuse to eat plants but only raw, unprepared meat, a tendency to like other materials or other perfstrings once they are turned. SO you could stumble on the personnality of a dwarf and see that now he likes "rose quartz, hematite and cows for their pulsing hearbeats".

[frodo0800]

the thing they're restricted to drink should be proceduraly generated too

[Wimopy]

First:
This could be connected with BC's being allergic to fluffy wamblers.
And about that garlic halberd... throwing garlic seems deadly.
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I like the idea of random weaknesses, perhaps talking with priests or other know-it-alls would tell you how.
The weaknesses itself... well.... I personally only heard of water, sunlight, silver, crosses and garlic. Dunno who specified running water. Oh, and I heard the inability to enter a house without invitation, although I never heard the leaving part.

DF's vampires could have a random weakness to a specific scent, except vomit or blood and a material. Know-it-alls might know which. Sounds like a good idea, although I'm sure Toady already thought of this.