D&D 5E Exhaustion for old 1e undead level drain

[HammerMan]

While I've never whacked a group from 18th to 7th (hell, I've never had a group get anywhere near 18th in the first place!) I too have removed numerous levels from characters over time.

in 2e I had a pack of wights lead by a vampire take a party of high teens (the straight wizard was 15 or 16) down to all single digits... it was pretty bad. 1 took out a pad, wrote some notes, then ripped her fighter/thief character sheet and took out a blank one cause it was easier to start over with a clean sheet then erase and back up everything.

That campaign the Wizard died around level 12 after that. However that Fighter/thief and 2 other characters got to use high level campaigns at one point...

 

[HammerMan]

You're assuming there's not already that much level variance within the party to begin with.

In 1e it's common to have a fairly wide level variance within a party. Experience has taught me that if you take the party's average level, anything within a + or - 2 range from that is usually viable; except at low levels it's + or - half the average instead.

So, if the party average is 6th the viable range is about 4th-8th; if the party average is 3rd then 2nd-4th is viable; if the average is 9th then 7th-11th works fine, and so on.

Yes. One of them is typing this right now.

in 2e (maybe about half way through my experience with the edition) we each kept logs of our own XP... we would ask the DM "Hey my fighter gets HD bonus xp for a killing blow, so what is that monsters HD" or "My theif gets xp= to gp value of items stolen what is the value of X" and then things like combat the DM would award at the end of each fight "You each get X" then when we did something cool he would give that PC bonus RP... normally at the end of each 'story' or 'adventure' we would get quest XP too...

so in 2e we played games where we had multi class fighter/mages that were 10/5 (since they killed alot and the bonus HD xp only went to fighter where the combat and rp was split) with a 19th level thief who stole one or two BIG items...

heck I personally made 2 different DMs (both still friends) pull there hair out because of super level jumps... One was a king was sailing on this super magic barge and we had to save him we knew he was going to be assasinated... we were somewhere around 5th level... I came up with the brilliant plan to steal the ship (with the crown jewls on it) and use it as a decoy... all the players helped we caught the bad guys and apologized to king returning his property... then I asked for the value of the boat/gems I stole since nothing said my thief couldn't give them back... That DM had a rule that you could only level 2 level per session but kept the xp... so for the next 6ish weeks I went up 2 levels per night well the rest of the party barly leveled 2 levels total in those 6 weeks of gaming...

the second was I had a wizard and my buddy had her paladin wizard. we talked about swapping spellbooks, but the DM wanted to just cut out 'learning spells' so they threw a library with every spell in the spell compendiums (thousands of spells) into the first dungeon. They forgot Wizards got something for learning spells... so we went through and learned every spell we could (based on our Int max) and any spell we failed we could try again at level up... and wont you know we power leveled to like level 7ish wizards just by spending a month in the library

 

[HammerMan]

Whoa, that is weird for AD&D. Does your party not have any multiclassed characters either?

(I'm running OD&D right now, and thirteen sessions into the campaign, the PCs' levels are already an asynchronous smear across the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd experience levels!)

yup different xp charts to level, diffrent ways to earn XP, and multi classing spliting the xp and BONUS xp based on a high stat... I don't think it is possible to have a party go 10 sessions and not be super diffrent levels (unless you all have the same class the same stats)

 

[Bedrockgames]

The fact that you can't non-magically heal level drain was a bit genre jarring. In Dracula they give transfusions and rest to help vampire bite victims recover. In AD&D the only mechanical options are for you to call in high level clerics to magic victims better.

Also the fact that 1e vampires inflict strong blows that drain two energy levels but do not actually bite and suck blood was another jarring genre mismatch to AD&D mechanics.

"Vampires have 18/76 strength.
If a vampire scores a hit upon an opponent, its powerful blow causes 5-10 points
of damage, and its powerful negative force drains 2 life energy levels from the
victim, complete with corresponding losses in hit dice, ability level, attack level,
etc."

You have to get into 2e Ravenloft before you get blood drinking mechanics for vampires.

I tend to think of AD&D genre emulation more as fitting the genre to the framework of the conceits of D&D (which I do think works but does have some of the issues you pointed to here). I was a Ravenloft GM so I remember that kind of unfolding in real time where the vampire started to come more in line with stuff like Dracula (I also think the Ravenloft line made monsters like that highly useable for gaming purposes and found ways to to build campaigns around them). With the AD&D vampire I am a little torn. i kind of liked having both, because I saw the AD&D vampire as this ferocious life energy draining creature (a little more like the monsters from Lifeforce). And that was pretty scary. But I was also a huge fan of vampire movies and vampire novels at the time, and leaned more towards the Ravenloft vampires. I will say, the AD&D vampire is definitely odd on first encounter, I do remember expecting a vampire to be like out of the movies and it functioned pretty different. Still overall, life draining undead that cost you levels when they hit, always got my attention as a player.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Adventurers are insane. Any sane one would immediately retire for life after amassing 100 gold coins they found in their first goblin caves. Find a magic +1 sword? Sale it and you and your kids are set for life.

Heh... and that's why I moved on from the whole 'dungeon crawling for gold' trope starting in like 3rd edition. When I and/or my players play D&D now, the characters do it for narrative reasons beyond just making cash, because as you say... if all that matters is making enough money to live a lavish life you'd only have to go out like once or twice to make your bank and then any sensible person would immediately retire.

As that runs counter to the possibility of the continuous playing of D&D with a single characters, our PCs now need to find other reasons and motivations to do so.

 

[Lanefan]

I have a hard time reconciling the idea of the "grit" of level drain if it can be removed at the next city for a couple magic items. So it's a "gritty" game in the moment it happens, but then once the adventure is over and you pay some GP the grit goes away? Personally, I don't see the point.

To each their own I guess... but me personally that just seems like a silly vicious circle that no character in their right mind would ever do-- go out to adventure to find treasure, but get so hurt doing it that you immediately have to spend said treasure just to fix all the problems you acquired by going out in the first place. You might as well just stay home.

Treasure in D&D is the very definition of easy come, easy go.

That said, the grit involved in level drain is usually the part between when it happens and the end of that adventure, when you're running at less than full steam and just trying to survive.

Same with dying - even if you want to come back to life you're out of luck until a) you can find a Cleric who can and will cast Raise Dead or Resurrection and b) you've got the funds to pay for it.

 

[Lanefan]

The problem as I remember it back then was that it disproportionately affected the front line. By the time you found that you were dealing with something that drained levels the fighters had lost a level or two while the spellcasters had not. That was okay in a one-shot horror game but in an ongoing campaign it only exacerbated the linear fighter / quadratic wizard problem.

Silly DMs who always had their undead attacking from ahead of the party...

That's what make Wraiths and Spectres so scary - they can easily fly to wherever they like and attack whoever they like, if not attacking from directly above in the first place.

 

[Casimir Liber]

Silly DMs who always had their undead attacking from ahead of the party...

That's what make Wraiths and Spectres so scary - they can easily fly to wherever they like and attack whoever they like, if not attacking from directly above in the first place.

Dang, now why didn't I think of that?? That is so obvious (and really cool!)

 

[Lyxen]

That's what make Wraiths and Spectres so scary - they can easily fly to wherever they like and attack whoever they like, if not attacking from directly above in the first place.

The old "specters attacking through walls, or ceiling, or even floor" thingie has been done a lot of times, and it's (rightly) considered quite unfair, especially since the rules are very unclear about what happens. In the worst interpretation, it's through the floor and the adventurers can do nothing...

I'm not saying not to use it, just be careful about the way you apply and rule it.

 

[Lanefan]

The old "specters attacking through walls, or ceiling, or even floor" thingie has been done a lot of times, and it's (rightly) considered quite unfair, especially since the rules are very unclear about what happens. In the worst interpretation, it's through the floor and the adventurers can do nothing...

That was a 3e thing, if memory serves. I don't recall them having that sort of ability in 1e unless there was a hole in the wall or floor they could waft through.

But they do fly, and thus should be able to take advantage of that by getting above the PCs.