How long do someone had to squat in a place before the “invitation” rule with vampires apply? /u/Irrelevant_Zack DnD: Roll for Initiative!

General question in the title, context for long form:

I’m running a D&D campaign for 5 players, where the overarching goal is for the party to establish a guild while helping talented individuals achieve their ambitions. The party consists of:

A blue dragonborn fighter tasked with building the guild, who recruited: A wild magic dwarf sorcerer, and An orc bard, both childhood friends of each other.

While the group works well together, two players tend to create new characters more often than advancing their plotlines (something which we talked about and everyone is cool with). For example, one of them started as a wood elf artificer who wanted to modernize his forest village without harming nature, proving to his hometown that artificers could work in harmony with it.

This led to an arc where the party uncovered a murder mystery, clearing a framed thief’s name while the artificer used spy gadgets to infiltrate a party in the Lord’s mansion. Solving that mystery, the artificer was invited to a college of magic (setting up a wizard multiclass for later) and given the chance to present his inventions to the lord when ready as a reward.

The other players got a nice sum if money to fund equipment, and the ability to request items from the artificer from time to time.

The Artf player then retired the artificer and introduced a traveling paladin seeking help with an undead problem.

They recovered an artifact from a graveyard dungeon that was realising necro energy, because of the “can’t even deal with skeletons” bit, the cleric decided to settle down, teaching the local church how to “cleric properly”, and the player swapped to a Chaotic Neutral monk with a vendetta against vampires.

The party dealt with fledgling vampires terrorizing the countryside but discovered info that indicated that the master vampire was too strong for their current level. Normally, this would lead to the paladin leaving to seek reinforcements from his order, but the monk’s player also wanted to change characters, which leads to:

The monk proposed infiltrating the vampire’s castle and simply living there, hiding from the vampires while disrupting their operations.

I found the concept hilarious, but it raised an interesting question:

If the monk starts squatting in the vampire’s lair, how long would it take before the place can be considered their “home”?

This matters because of the rule that vampires can’t enter a home without an invitation.

Could the monk eventually claim parts of the lair as their own safe haven, effectively barring the vampire from entering certain areas?

How would you deal with that?

General question in the title, context for long form:

I’m running a D&D campaign for 5 players, where the overarching goal is for the party to establish a guild while helping talented individuals achieve their ambitions. The party consists of:

A blue dragonborn fighter tasked with building the guild, who recruited: A wild magic dwarf sorcerer, and An orc bard, both childhood friends of each other.

While the group works well together, two players tend to create new characters more often than advancing their plotlines (something which we talked about and everyone is cool with). For example, one of them started as a wood elf artificer who wanted to modernize his forest village without harming nature, proving to his hometown that artificers could work in harmony with it.

This led to an arc where the party uncovered a murder mystery, clearing a framed thief’s name while the artificer used spy gadgets to infiltrate a party in the Lord’s mansion. Solving that mystery, the artificer was invited to a college of magic (setting up a wizard multiclass for later) and given the chance to present his inventions to the lord when ready as a reward.

The other players got a nice sum if money to fund equipment, and the ability to request items from the artificer from time to time.

The Artf player then retired the artificer and introduced a traveling paladin seeking help with an undead problem.

They recovered an artifact from a graveyard dungeon that was realising necro energy, because of the “can’t even deal with skeletons” bit, the cleric decided to settle down, teaching the local church how to “cleric properly”, and the player swapped to a Chaotic Neutral monk with a vendetta against vampires.

The party dealt with fledgling vampires terrorizing the countryside but discovered info that indicated that the master vampire was too strong for their current level. Normally, this would lead to the paladin leaving to seek reinforcements from his order, but the monk’s player also wanted to change characters, which leads to:

The monk proposed infiltrating the vampire’s castle and simply living there, hiding from the vampires while disrupting their operations.

I found the concept hilarious, but it raised an interesting question:

If the monk starts squatting in the vampire’s lair, how long would it take before the place can be considered their “home”?

This matters because of the rule that vampires can’t enter a home without an invitation.

Could the monk eventually claim parts of the lair as their own safe haven, effectively barring the vampire from entering certain areas?

How would you deal with that?