D&D 4E 4E: Energy Drain & Level Drain

[CleverNickName]

I hope they get rid of them...they are such a bookkeeping nightmare. If you are sending the party into a nest of vampires, you pretty much need all of the characters in Excel spreadsheet format just to keep track of the negative levels, restoration spells, and any other modifiers that come up. "Let's see...Yeagar was hit three times in that last battle, but then Piffany cast lesser restoration on him, then he was hit twice again. Nodwick got hit three times, but Piffany had to use her last restoration spell on Artax who got hit five times, and had to use her bear's endurance spell on Nodwick instead to keep his hit points up. Then, three rounds later, the wights showed up and..." Ugh.

And heaven help you if one of those lost levels should become permanent; the character's skill list and feats are hosed beyond recognition, and you've got an instant fight on your hands with an (understandably) upset player. Unless a player keeps back-logs of all of her character sheets from every single level-up, there will always be an argument over hit points, ability points, action points, XP points, skill points...it's like getting audited by the IRS.

Besides...I never liked the idea of a monster attack draining one's experience. Like one of my players lamented, "why am I losing experience levels, anyway?! Did that vampire make me forget that I kicked his a$$ last week?!" I didn't know what to say.

After the Vampire Nest Fiasco of 2005, we ended up dropping level drain/negative levels altogether, and replacing it with Con drain instead. The end result was less of a hassle for me, and a lot more fun for the players. I hope they do the same in 4E.

So, to the 4E game designers: please lose the XP drain/level loss stuff. I promise to send you some hand-crafted ale if you oblige.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think they might go with the -1 to everything per neg level, and if your neg levels = current levels, you die (and maybe rise as some horrible undead or something).

I don't like the condition track for D&D so much, though I wouldn't mind a bigger "buffer" area between totally healthy and suddenly unconscious.

 

[Klaus]

I think they might go with the -1 to everything per neg level, and if your neg levels = current levels, you die (and maybe rise as some horrible undead or something).

I don't like the condition track for D&D so much, though I wouldn't mind a bigger "buffer" area between totally healthy and suddenly unconscious.

That's what I do.

 

[KarinsDad]

I'm hoping that they implement a SWSE-style Condition Track. If they do, Energy Drain can simply be a persistent condition that pushes you one or more steps down the Condition Track and can't be removed until you receive appropriate Restoration magic.

This would be the system that works best with their model.

However, the problem is that the Condition Track itself is flawed.

It goes -1, -2, -5, -10. It doesn't take much to get to -5 or -10 and to make them persistent would be a real pain in the butt.

A better system is to make the Condition Track -1, -2, -3, etc. That way, it is:

1) Easy to remember (e.g. "I'm -4 to all D20 rolls, opps, I'm now -5 to all D20 rolls")

2) Consistent and does not require any table lookups.

3) Scary. The problem with 3.5 Level Drain is that it is so easy to save against it and so easy to cure. Depending on how difficult it is to cure, this could be scary again like 1E/2E where it was hit and damaged. In 3E/3.5, it was hit and save and save and no cure was scary, nothing else really was. With no saves in 4E, it might be back to 1E/2E hit and damaged.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

Andy Collins said that there'd be no XP-eating monsters anymore (read: bye-bye level drain).

Maybe they'll go with a flat penalty (-1 to all ability scores or something like that) with a static or variable duration.

 

[frankthedm]

I'm hoping the monster inflict a fear penalty and heals itself as much as it deals to a living victim. A fear inducing vapiric touch on every hit.

 

[Cadfan]

Just get rid of it.

Replace it with something more easily tracked, like ability point damage. The flavor is the same anyways.

 

[frankthedm]

Just get rid of it.

Replace it with something more easily tracked, like ability point damage. The flavor is the same anyways.

Not at all. Ability damage cripples a hero almost as fast a commoner. Having an ability score get attacked is like having HP that don't even go up one per level.

At least with energy drain you can take as many his as you had levels.