D&D 5E Wights and wraiths

[I'm A Banana]

I honestly don't think that the default baseline has to be this. D&D went three decades without this as the baseline. Now, I don't believe that the default options need to be the harshest, but neither should they be the most forgiving. The default mechanics should reasonably express the in-world effects they describe. You can't do that and not have permanent or long lasting effects

IMO, it's got little to do with harsh vs. forgiving and much to do with ease of play. Tracking fiddly bits such as random -1's and different HP totals and whatnot are a PITA to track over the course of several extended rests. While the intent is to "make it last," the effect is often just to track one more fob that goes away at a slightly different rate than your other fobs. It's not necessarily more forgiving, it's just less annoying.

That's important for newbies and casual players. An annoyance might be all they need to say, "Nope. Not fun."

I don't think it should be excluded (in part because I'd personally like to use those rules!), but I do think it's a dial that you can turn. No effects last past an "extended rest" by default, but if you want to track ongoing energy drain or diseases or curses or whatever, here's the rules (4e's disease rules make a nice starting point, though they might need some work). Slap 'em on your monsters and traps and have fun.

Energy drain can be anything from "extra necrotic damage on a hit" to "reduces your max HP" to "gives you negative levels" to "if you die with them, you become a spawn." Everybody's happy!

 

[Magil]

To some extent, I understand that it's dull to have the players just run off to hire a cleric, but that's more of a problem with the availability of consequence free divine magic, a problem that already has wide-reaching detrimental effects on the setting.

Spirit healing itself quickly doesn't fit well with human culture. Our myths, stories, and even day to day metaphors are filled with examples of spiritual wounds that don't heal easily if at all. At our most optimistic, the phrase is "time heals all wounds," and we're not referring to an extended rest.

All of that said, your idea of having to kill the monster has merit, depending on the monster. Some monsters should consume drained energy for temporary power, in which case killing the monster to get it back doesn't really make sense. Others, though, might hold the energy and gain permanent power. In these cases, it makes absolute sense that killing the monster could free the energy.

Well, the alternative to the "easily accessible magic on hire" is to say that a party that has access to divine magic (i.e. contains a cleric) treats energy drain as a trivial annoyance, while a party that does not have access to divine magic struggles and may have to embark on a quest to resolve it. That is not an interesting or appealing situation to me, it says "YOU NEED A DIVINE SPELLCASTER IN YOU PARTY!" Just because that was good enough for thirty years doesn't mean I have to like it, or think it would be good for the game now. I understand you want to make magic "special," but I'd prefer to avoid dynamics such as that in order to do so.

I don't see the need to make energy drain a "permanent" thing as part of the default setting. "Because that's how it was in the past" is not good enough, I see too many negatives.

 

[Nellisir]

I could see one a day working - rather like stat damage recovery in 3e. I'd be tempted to make it automatic rather than based on a Fort save though. A nasty energy draining encounter could take days to recover from, but assuming you didn't get killed, you would recover.

Eventually, you would succeed on the Fort saves. Making it automatic just changes the recovery time for each level from "sometime in the next 20 days" to "tomorrow".

I like the -1 across the board, btw, and the save to recover. If you want to be a real pain, the character can't save for a number of days equal to the penalty (so someone hit once has to wait 24 hours, and someone hit 5 times has to wait 5 days), and only recovers one per day.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Well, the alternative to the "easily accessible magic on hire" is to say that a party that has access to divine magic (i.e. contains a cleric) treats energy drain as a trivial annoyance, while a party that does not have access to divine magic struggles and may have to embark on a quest to resolve it. That is not an interesting or appealing situation to me, it says "YOU NEED A DIVINE SPELLCASTER IN YOU PARTY!" Just because that was good enough for thirty years doesn't mean I have to like it, or think it would be good for the game now. I understand you want to make magic "special," but I'd prefer to avoid dynamics such as that in order to do so.

I don't see the need to make energy drain a "permanent" thing as part of the default setting. "Because that's how it was in the past" is not good enough, I see too many negatives.

That's one alternative, but it's not the only one. I believe we could come up with something that satisfies both our needs. Please allow me to ramble for at bit.

I recognize your concern. It's essentially the same one that's at the root of rule where an extended rest gives you back all your hit points, and I have the same problems with that.

I care a lot about verisimilitude. It's the one thing that tabletop RPGs do well that no other type of game can compare to. So I'm always critical of any rule that flies in the face of that. I certainly don't need absolute realism, but I do need to be able to suspend disbelief.

The cleric is a problem. He isn't just essential for the party — he alters the nature of society. He is a font of curative magic that would insure that no lord or king ever dies, that no injury ever changes anybody's life, and that disease and poison effectively disappear. This is the side of the equation they should be addressing. A party with a cleric, or even with the funds to hire a cleric, shouldn't be able to ignore threats or simply remove maladies.

Most fantasy fiction solves this problem by making powerful magic dangerous and unpredictable, and often it requires a sacrifice.

For example, what if restoration wasn't a guaranteed success? The cleric asks his or her god to repair a broken person, but it's up to the god if the person is worth restoring. If so, the god will still take something in exchange or perhaps demand a geas. If the god is offended, such as from being asked to restore someone of opposite alignment or an enemy of the faith, then the results might be disastrous for both the patient and the cleric. This would have to be handled by the DM, though likely with the optional aid of a random chart.

Under these rules, energy drain is permanent for all practical purposes. But, where it makes sense for the campaign, it can be cured. Moreover, those optional rules I mentioned — wherein energy drain can be healed through meditation, soul-searching, or self discovery — become more meaningful.

This is the sort of thing I'm looking for out of the rules. Not everything needs to be this complex, of course. Kamikaze Midget is right in that the game doesn't to many things to track. But it does need some, and energy drain can be made into a good one.

I believe I've stated my case as well as I can. Obviously, you don't have to agree, though I am interested in your input.

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

That's one alternative, but it's not the only one. I believe we could come up with something that satisfies both our needs. Please allow me to ramble for at bit.

I recognize your concern. It's essentially the same one that's at the root of rule where an extended rest gives you back all your hit points, and I have the same problems with that.

I care a lot about verisimilitude. It's the one thing that tabletop RPGs do well that no other type of game can compare to. So I'm always critical of any rule that flies in the face of that. I certainly don't need absolute realism, but I do need to be able to suspend disbelief.

And the damage inflicted by energy drain in D&D must be "permanent" in order for you to suspended disbelief? Sorry, I don't believe it needs to be.

I've read a lot of fiction that has characters receiving damage directly to their life-forces/Ki/soul/chakra. In some of them the damage is permanent, in others special techniques and abilities are needed to fix it, and in others it can be recovered from naturally overtime (varying between hours, days, weeks and years) and some techniques and abilities can accelerate recovery. I doubt that if you encountered them in their own fiction that they would break your suspension of disbelief.

 

[Magil]

The cleric is a problem. He isn't just essential for the party — he alters the nature of society. He is a font of curative magic that would insure that no lord or king ever dies, that no injury ever changes anybody's life, and that disease and poison effectively disappear. This is the side of the equation they should be addressing. A party with a cleric, or even with the funds to hire a cleric, shouldn't be able to ignore threats or simply remove maladies.

Most fantasy fiction solves this problem by making powerful magic dangerous and unpredictable, and often it requires a sacrifice.

For example, what if restoration wasn't a guaranteed success? The cleric asks his or her god to repair a broken person, but it's up to the god if the person is worth restoring. If so, the god will still take something in exchange or perhaps demand a geas. If the god is offended, such as from being asked to restore someone of opposite alignment or an enemy of the faith, then the results might be disastrous for both the patient and the cleric. This would have to be handled by the DM, though likely with the optional aid of a random chart.

Under these rules, energy drain is permanent for all practical purposes. But, where it makes sense for the campaign, it can be cured. Moreover, those optional rules I mentioned — wherein energy drain can be healed through meditation, soul-searching, or self discovery — become more meaningful.

This is the sort of thing I'm looking for out of the rules. Not everything needs to be this complex, of course. Kamikaze Midget is right in that the game doesn't to many things to track. But it does need some, and energy drain can be made into a good one.

I believe I've stated my case as well as I can. Obviously, you don't have to agree, though I am interested in your input.

The problem I have with this is I can't imagine it being in the default rules, and therefore I cannot have permanent energy drain as a part of the default rules either. Having to leap through hurdles to cast your spells isn't fun and it's bothersome to new players. I see preparing slots and the resource management involved already frankly stifling enough, I wouldn't enjoy even MORE restrictions on spell casting, and they absolutely shouldn't be default.

Interestingly, 4th edition's answer to restoration was at least somewhat risky, in the remove affliction ritual--it would always damage the target if your Heal check was quite low. It's actually somewhat similar to what you said about restoration not being guaranteed. In fact casting remove affliction could kill the target, but in practice it wouldn't if the caster had a decent Heal check. I'm not sure if that's a good direction to take it, but it'd be a lot less bothersome than having to invoke the DM's personal judgment.

I can't say I'm satisfied with your proposed answer to the problem, as I think we should keep things simple for the Core rules. And while a permanent energy drain in and of itself isn't that complicated, the fallout certainly can cause complications, and so I do not believe it should be something they should have in the core game. And I definitely do not believe that a wight simply hitting you with an attack roll should cause such dreadful fallout--in the rules I like, you need to get unlucky/screw up at least a couple of times before you're stuck with a long-lasting affliction. And it should always be treatable in some way, and perhaps tax party resources, but not their enjoyment of the game.

 

[mlund]

Personally, I don't see anything wrong with Energy Drain handing out "Suck Points" to characters that have a nice, simple description of what it does:

Energy Drained: -5HP and -1 to all attack rolls, saves, and checks

Get drained, get a suck-point. Hand the player a penny to put on his character sheet. As long as the game doesn't have a bunch of individualized, specific modifiers floating around for everything (+1 higher ground, +2 charging, -2 prone, +2 combat advantage, -1 size, +1 morale, -2 cursed, etc.) its OK to have the rare signature effect that does leave a mark.

As for removing it, the motif usually calls for either a significant period of recovery (multiple days) or some sort of intervention by means of something like herb-craft, alchemy, spells, or religious rites. Those last parts don't require class-level spell-casters using slots, either. They could be NPC witch-craft or the invocation of a mundane priest or bishop in some form of sacrament. If there are supernatural, un-living monsters that drain life-energy out of human bodies then you aren't pushing the magic dial any further to have a supernatural counter-measure to purge the effects.

- Marty Lund

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

And the damage inflicted by energy drain in D&D must be "permanent" in order for you to suspended disbelief? Sorry, I don't believe it needs to be.

I did not say that. I was responding to the problem that permanent energy drain makes the cleric an essential part of the group. I don't believe that getting rid of permanent or long lasting conditions or damage is the proper solution to the cleric problem.

The problem I have with this is I can't imagine it being in the default rules, and therefore I cannot have permanent energy drain as a part of the default rules either. Having to leap through hurdles to cast your spells isn't fun and it's bothersome to new players. I see preparing slots and the resource management involved already frankly stifling enough, I wouldn't enjoy even MORE restrictions on spell casting, and they absolutely shouldn't be default.

[...]

I can't say I'm satisfied with your proposed answer to the problem, as I think we should keep things simple for the Core rules. And while a permanent energy drain in and of itself isn't that complicated, the fallout certainly can cause complications, and so I do not believe it should be something they should have in the core game.

For the most part, we're talking about powerful magic that players wouldn't even have access to until higher levels. There's room, and even desire for some more complication at high levels. But I get your point. I still hold that you can't have a rational Cleric if it's easy and reliable to cast spells like restoration and raise dead.

And I definitely do not believe that a wight simply hitting you with an attack roll should cause such dreadful fallout--in the rules I like, you need to get unlucky/screw up at least a couple of times before you're stuck with a long-lasting affliction. And it should always be treatable in some way, and perhaps tax party resources, but not their enjoyment of the game.

Clearly, you and I enjoy different types of games, though to a limited degree I concur. Not that a monster shouldn't be able to inflict permanent injury on a hit, but that a party should choose to engage in that fight while knowing the risks. These things should be uncommon, but I think it's important that they exist. I believe that your character is defined by its flaws, it's scars, and the risks that it's willing to take.

I know that comes off a bit as "my way to play is better than yours." And perhaps that is what I mean to an extent. I think the game will be more satisfying for most players if there are fewer safety gloves.

 

[Kinak]

Just throwing an idea out there: What if energy drain is only healed by a long rest on consecrated ground (as in a permanent temple)?

It's "stickier" than just a long rest without requiring a cleric and doesn't require a ton of bookkeeping, especially if it just reduces maximum hit points or reduces hit dice until then.

And I think it has pretty good flavor. In Lord of the Rings terms, this is Frodo recuperating in Rivendell after the Ring Wraith attack.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[GameDoc]

I would imagine if anyone at Wizards were following this thread, they might take this as a sign that energy drain is one of those components of the game that you give the DM a dial to adjust based on the desired play style or lethality of their campaign.

This got me to thinking that each monster that has an ability that the DM might dial up or down is going to have to have a sidebar in its entry in the Monster Manual. Then it occurred to me that if this is done, there really ought to be some guidelines that help DMs match all the dials they adjust in the game to make things work smoothly. For example, you might link each setting for energy drain to a suggested setting for the HP/HD recovery dial. Perhaps they could come up with a coding system to make it easier to follow.

I don't envy the task of the game designers and technical writers who have to develop that sort of system of cross-referencing and present it in an organized, coherent, and user-friendly way. That said, I'm inclined to hope they do something like that, and they'll habe my graditute, admiration (and money) if they can do it well. The customization aspect they are going for with this new edition is really a strong point. The easier they can make the process of customizing your game elements, the better.