What options are available to me to protect my party from level drain (vampires)? Which spells, potions, magic items, other creative solutions, etc.

Thanks,
Ranger

cast protection from negative energy on all of your forward characters. you have to cast it on each and every person to be protectd, so choose who to put it on carefully. it is a a level four presit spell i think. also there is a amulet in the game somewhere which protects from negative energy, but i cant remmember what its called. If you need any help fighting vampires ask because i think i remmember some good ways.

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>Clerics and Druids get the spell of Negative Plane Protection, at spell level 4, IIRC, but that only lasts for a very short time, so don't rely on that too much.
Undead Hunters (the paladin kit) are constantly immune to level drain.
Clerics of Lathander get the special ability Boon of Lathander, which also protects from l.d., apart from giving some other nifty bonuses, for a fairly long time.
Barbarians' Rage does the trick too (but take care - NOT a Berserker's Rage)
As for items, the Mace of Disruption and the Necklace of Power for SoA, and those two plus the Runehammer (and maybe a few others) for ToB. No potions.

I believe that's about it. There may be more that I couldn't remember just now, but not a lot.

My favorite tactic when fighting vampires is to have one or two powerful melee characters, protected from l.d. by either spells or items (Mace of Disruption!!!) and protected by the spell Chaotic Commands (to resist the vamps' mind-controlling abilities) engage them in close combat while my otherparty-members attack them from a distance.

[ 01-10-2002: Message edited by: J'aran ]</p>

I find it better to cast PFNE on only one tank and let him be the sole front line fighter since the duration is so unbelievably short, by time you get the other cast the first one is close to wearing off. Unless for some reason you have two people who can cast it, then go all out.

Yeah, but I found Negative Plane Protection to be unsatisfactory due to its lack of duration. What I came up with is this: just have two fighters in close combat with the vampires. (Best to use the choke point approach here, like forcing them to come in a doorway to get at you.) Make sure these fighters have very low ACs - if they can't be hit, they can't be level drained. Then, have you clerics memorize two spells: chaotic commands and lesser restoration. (Chaotic commands is important because it protects you from what might be the vampire's most dangerous attack, domination.) If your characters in the front rank are hit, simply cast lesser restoration on them after the battle. Being fighter-types, they won't really lose any spells, just hit points.

I found the spell false dawn works fairly well against undead. It dosn't protect you from level drain but it flamestrikes them all and makes all the undead confused who then roam around without attacking you rendering them defenseless from huge axe blows to the head....