Powers and Limitations

Each vampire is 'gifted' with certain powers - such as strength, the ability to read minds, sensing emotions, influencing 'weaker' minds all of which Damon, Stefan, Katherine and Klaus demonstrate throughout the books. These Powers increase with age and drinking human blood. This explains why other vampires, such as Damon are stronger than Stefan who refused to drink human blood.
The section below will analyse the powers Damon uses during The Vampire Diaries. It will also discuss what limitations LJ Smith puts on her vampires. For comparison with other series check out the vampire comparison section.

Animals to Call

The ability to transform into an animal is an important part of the story, and is the most obvious power of all of the vampires in The Vampire Diaries. We learn the average number of animals a vampire can 'call' or transform into is two. Stefan can call one animal, the Falcon, although this is rare due to the amount of Power it requires. Katherine can transform into the cat, tiger and owl. Damon himself can call two animals, the wolf and the crow. He uses these animals as a means of travel and a weapon.

There are two key scenes where Damon transforms - when Stefan is being held by hunters; Damon uses his wolf form to scatter them, and in VD3 he attacks Katherine when she is in the form of a tiger.
The crow is used more often; it is used to travel and get away from situations quickly, such as when Elena angered him in VD3 or when Klaus tried to attack him in VD4. It is implied early in the book that Damon is the crow that Elena sees outside her house during VD1:

She caught sight of something dark in the branches of the old quince tree in front of her house. It was a crow, sitting as still as the yellow tinged leaves around it. And the thing was watching her...It was the biggest crow she had ever seen, plump and sleek, with rainbows shining in it's black feathers. She could see every detail of it clearly: the greedy dark claws, the single glittering black eye. It was so motionless, it could have been a wax model of a bird sitting there. But as she stared at it, Elena felt herself flush slowly, heat coming in waves up her throat and cheeks. Because it was ... looking at her.

The animals are interesting for LJS to choose for Damon; they are both animals surrounded by myth and fear. Both are symbols of evil and the Devil in superstition.

Weather

Throughout the series it is implied that vampires, depending on their power, can alter the weather. Humans remark at the strange weather for the time of the year, and Stefan confirms that Damon could be behind this. An example of this power could be when Damon appears as the crow outside Elen's house the sky is overcast. But the most obvious display is when the company goes to Vicki's house in VD4:

Vickie's house was on a corner, and they approached it from the side street. By now the sky was filled with heavy purple clouds. The light had an almost underwater quality.
"Looks like it's going to storm", Matt said.
Bonnie glanced at Damon. Neither he or Stefan light bright light. And she could feel the Power emanating from him, like a low thrum just under the surface of his skin. He smiled without looking at her and said, "How about snow in June?".

Manipulation

The power to influence those with weaker minds is another power that all vampires have to varying degrees depending on the extent of their 'power'. For this reason, Stefan believed that Damon could be behind the attacks on citizens of Fell's Church and himself.
Damon's power is not just to influence, he can feel where a person is, how they are feeling and also put them to sleep. An example of this is in VD4 when Stefan wanted to go talk to Vicki Bennett but needed to get around her parents:

Stefan looked at Damon. 'How many people in the house?'
'Two. Man and woman. The woman's drunk.'
Poor Mrs. Bennett, thought Bonnie.
'I need them both asleep, ' Stefan said.
In spite of herself, Bonnie was fascinated by the surge of Power she felt from Damon. Her psychic abilities had never been strong enough to sense its raw essence before, but now they were. Now she could feel it as clearly as she could see the fading violet light or smell the honeysuckle outside Vicki's window.
Damon shrugged. 'They're asleep.'

This power of manipulation extends further than the ability to 'knock-out' a person. Vampires in The Vampire Diaries can manipulate those with 'weaker' minds - both humans, other vampires and animals. Katherine controlled the town animals into attacking the citizens, but also led both Damon and Stefan to Fell's Church so she could seek her revenge.

The threat of manipulation can be overcome with Vervain a herb that for many centuries was believed to help prevent the threat of evil. In The Vampire Diaries, the plant is given by Stefan to Elena and her friends with the intent to help prevent Damon from influencing them. Stefan believed at the time that Damon could be the evil power that was attacking towns-folk.

Limitations and Threats

The most powerful limitation to a vampire is that of sunlight or intense heat. This is a well-accepted limitation of all vampires. However LJ Smith added her own mix on sunlight by giving her vampires a way of living in light - she introduced the idea of a talisman to allow vampires to be in sunlight without being harmed. The use of lapis lazuli allowed Katherine, Stefan, Elena and Damon this luxury. Even with the talisman sunlight still weakens The Vampire Diaries vampires, which is why Katherine and Damon influence the weather in order to prevent their powers from being diminished.

Another limitation is running water, another common myth which states that evil cannot cross. During VD3 Katherine explains that to allow her to move around she used the tunnels so she went under running water rather than across it. Despite Elena and Stefan doubting Damon throughout the series, Damon could drive over the river with the rest of the group meaning that either he was not as powerful or evil as Katherine for running water to be one of his limitations.

While not expanded on, I would assume that staking the vampire through the heart is a way of killing The Vampire Diaries vampires. By this I mean that LJS has ignored some of the more usual limitations on vampires (see below). But when Stefan is captured by the fathers of Fell's Church they attempt to stake him, however this is not elaborated on whether this is an effective means of killing a vampire. One of the most common woods used for stakes (particularly in Europe) was Ash. Ash was favoured by vampire hunters in Northern Europe, particularly in Russia and the Baltic. According to the Roman writer Piny the Elder, all things evil feared ashwood. This wood is what Stefan and Damon used against Klaus during VD4 although it was not as effective. The name of the wood is derived from the Norse asha which is apparently what the tree of life, Yggdrasil was made from.

Vampires must be invited into a dwelling - which is defined as any place a human would sleep or eat (so it can be a caravan or houseboat). Most myths explain that vampires are prevented from entering a place where humans 'live', since they are not considered 'human'. This was an interesting point to remember, since Damon was never invited into Vicki's house, which prevented him from offering any help to Vicki Bennett against Klaus.

The ones LJS left out

While LJ Smith's vampires are similar to most other media representations of vampires, LJ Smith has ignored one of the largest limitations of vampires, and that is the repulsion of holy-objects. For more comparison of The Vampire Diaries vampire, see the comparison page. It is rather interesting that LJ Smith decided to leave off the most common and well-accepted limitation on vampires. However, the belief that vampires are repulsed by holy-objects comes from the belief that vampires are in league with the Devil and do not possess souls. Anne Rice, in her famous series, The Vampire Chronicles also leaves off this limitation. For LJS perhaps it is because her vampires are portrayed as 'humans' and are able to act as normal people and fall in love.
Another common protection against vampires is Garlic, and this is not mentioned in the series. Garlic has wide use against all forms of evil that stretch back to Ancient Egypt where the herb was believed to have healing powers.