Energy Draining

I have to admit that I dislike the mechanics of energy draining.

But, energy draining has something that very few other DND elements has:

Fear.

There is almost a terror in players entering a crypt where undead that can energy drain might jump out at them. The most fearlessly played PC suddenly becomes somewhat cautious. Some of the best sessions ever are ones in spooky crypts, not because of any special descriptive abilities of the DM, but because energy draining is so dispised by players and those who emerge unscathed are often very relieved.

If Energy Draining is removed from 4E, I hope the designers replace it with something that forces similar levels of caution by the players. I suspect that will not happen, but one can hope.

Course, 3E removed most of the fear of energy drain by allowing lower level Clerics to get rid of some of it at 7th level instead of 13th level, but it at least some of the fear is still there for lower levels.

KarinsDad said:

I have to admit that I dislike the mechanics of energy draining.

But, energy draining has something that very few other DND elements has:

Fear.

Click to expand...

In my experience, the fear it engenders is completely overwhelmed by frustration. YM obviously V.

Just a thought: the fact that they're no longer monsters that "eat XP" doesn't necessarily mean there's no more energy drain.

3E made the first step, using negative levels that might become level loss eventually, instead of instantaneous level loss. 4E energy drain might be just negative levels: a wight hits you and you get -1 to everything. If you fail the save to remove the negative level, it doesn't become level loss, you just fail to remove it. Much like a curse, it's just a penalty that's somewhat difficult to remove, rather than something that forces you to restat that character.

Even death might work similarly. Get raised, take -1 to everything until next you gain the next level. I've heard of this used as a house rule in 3E and used it myself and it works fine.

I'd expect some further refinement, but I wouldn't be surprised if 4E energy drain/death penalty turned out to be based on this idea.