Energy Drain

[the Jester]

Hm? I've been thinking of this differently. Take a 3rd level fighter with Survivor. He has 5 hit dice, 3d10 and 2d8. And let's say for the sake of argument that he's spent two of his d10's, so he has 1d10 and 2d8 left.

I was thinking that when the wight drains him, he loses his last d10 first, then his d8's. But you're saying he could be drained of hit dice he doesn't have any more? I'm not sure of the rationale.

Of course, my way makes a wight even more scary near the end of the day, when you've lost most of your hit dice. Even a high-level fighter could go down quickly!

But what happens when the wight hits someone who has spent all his hit dice? That's the issue that I was trying to address.

My way, even if you have spent your 3d10, you take 1d10 damage (and the wight heals half as much).

 

[The Shadow]

But what happens when the wight hits someone who has spent all his hit dice? That's the issue that I was trying to address.

My way, even if you have spent your 3d10, you take 1d10 damage (and the wight heals half as much).

Oh, I see. For once I was thinking more harshly than you.

I was thinking that if you're out of hit dice, and the wight drains you? You go down. (Unconscious or dead, depending on the lethality option.)

 

[Unwise]

I did quiet a lot of playtesting with Wights just last night strangely enough.

The adventurers were heading into a barrow full of wights, after being unimpressed with the ones I used in the first area, I mixed it up a little in later fights. I used three types of Wights.

1) I was unimpressed by the heal-on-hit drain effect as written. All it meant was that it took slightly longer to kill the wight if he hit you. It did nothing to make them fear the Wights.

2) The next encounter they encounter Wight 2.0, this was a tougher type of guy, his attack was a level-drain. More accurately a level-suppression. The PCs were 5th level. Once hit, they could not use any 5th level abilities, spells or feats. Get hit again, they can't use any 4th level ones, etc. By the end of it, they were fighting only able to use their basic level 1 abilities. The Cleric and Wizard learnt to fire off their high level spells ASAP before they lost the ability to use them

The advantage of this type of level-drain was that it required no real book keeping. It just suppressed abilities, it did not change to-hit or any other stats. I was nice and let the cleric still use Remove Affliction as a ritual, despite the level drain. He got the party up and going after the fight. After all, as a GM you don't want to bore people by making them use nothing but basic attacks.


3) When they reached the end guy, I decided I could play around with hit dice draining that I did not want to do too early in the game. So when this Wight Thane hit them, he caused them to lost a hit dice, then he healed up for the full amount of that hit dice. If they ran out of hit dice, then they instead take their dice value in damage and the wight is healed for that amount. Did I mention he was elite so could attack twice per turn?

This was interesting, as soon people were drained of dice, so the Dwarf Fighter was taking an additional 2d12 if he bore the brunt of the attacks, where as the wizard would only lose an additional 2d4 if he was the one getting hit. The Wight Thane has a much easier time draining the life out of a strong person than a weak one. Further more, the Thane was healing for 2d12 every turn he hit the Fighter. It got to the stage where the PCs just wanted to keep him away from the tough guys and the weeny guys started tanking him. The PCs enjoyed the discrepency from normal.

 

[Li Shenron]

Level drain is difficult due to rewriting characters.

That's what makes energy drain even more scary

 

[The Shadow]

The advantage of this type of level-drain was that it required no real book keeping. It just suppressed abilities, it did not change to-hit or any other stats. I was nice and let the cleric still use Remove Affliction as a ritual, despite the level drain. He got the party up and going after the fight. After all, as a GM you don't want to bore people by making them use nothing but basic attacks.

Interesting. It certainly does sound a lot easier to run, while keeping most of the spirit of the old version. I'm still not sure of the fluff for it, though.

It got to the stage where the PCs just wanted to keep him away from the tough guys and the weeny guys started tanking him. The PCs enjoyed the discrepency from normal.

That's hilarious! The mental image of the big strong fighter cowering behind the robed wizard with a dagger is delicious.

 

[Zaukrie]

Love the idea of not being able to use powers by level, love it. I will be stealing that for my 4e game right now.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Level drain is difficult due to rewriting characters.

Question?

How is that any different than having to "rewrite your character" every time you gained all those short term modifiers that were changing every round in 4th edition?

 

[Zaukrie]

Modifiers only apply to a roll or two. Changing a level changes everything about you. They are not even close to the same complexity.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Modifiers only apply to a roll or two. Changing a level changes everything about you. They are not even close to the same complexity.

You must not have played much of 4th edition if you think modifiers are only applied to a hit or two.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

(double post)