Anyone else really dislike Ability Damage & Ability Drain?

[frankthedm]

Anyone else really dislike Ability Damage & Ability Drain? My own dislike of it has grown over the years and I'm wonder who else is sick of Whack-A-Stat.

Originally Posted by [MENTION=1288]Mouseferatu[/MENTION]
Stat penalties were (IMO, of course) one of those 3e-isms that looked good on paper but ground the game to a screeching halt. I can't tell you how many times combat was held up as a player or the DM has to recalculate half a dozen numbers--attack rolls, damage rolls, skills, saves, whatever--because someone dealt Strength or Con damage.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-legacy-discussion/215090-when-pcs-gains-middle-age.html
http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-legacy-discussion/212646-shadows-lethal-strength-drain.html
http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-discussion/223870-stat-penalties-damage.html

 

[Fallenibilis]

I know personally my first major run in with Whack-A-Stat was when my party got ambushed by Forest Trolls and there nasty Con damage poisoned javilins, dropped half the party and sent me hiding beneath the wagon.

It was not fun at all, so yes i do believe that i'm fed up with Whack-A-Stat.

Fallenibilis

 

[Beginning of the End]

Is it the recalculation of derived attributes or the ability to target (with greater difficulty) a small, non-inflationary pool of points?

We've been toying with the idea of handling ability drain like energy drain, but with a shorter term limit: For every two points of ability damage (regardless of which ability), you suffer a -1 penalty on all skill checks, ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws. (Two special cases: Con loss still subtracts hit points and caster's who have their spellcasting attribute targeted have to adjust the save DCs of their spells.)

When an encounter ends, re-calculate the actual penalties.

We combine this with a system where a lot of save-or-die effects instead inflict ability score damage. (So, for example, a petrification effect deals Dex damage and death effects deal Con damage.)

If the potentially lethal end-game also bugs you, simply eliminate those effects: You can drain someone down to 1 point in their attributes, but that's as low as they go. (Obviously this wouldn't work with the save-or-die as ability score damage variant.)

 

[Jhaelen]

There are worse things, but, yes, it probably would have been better to replace them with standard conditions like weakened, nauseated, etc.

 

[Alexander123]

If having to recalculate is the issue, you can go on Mythweavers and they have electronic character sheets which automatically recalculates ability drain and damage.

 

[delericho]

Doesn't really help for those luddites amongst us who insist on paper character sheets.

I agree with the OP (and Mouseferatu) - ability damage and drain (and boosts) look good on paper, but they're more trouble than they're worth in the game. I would be inclined to replace them with a unified Condition Track (as in SWSE, but run it both ways to include bonuses as well as penalties).

You could even unify the standard conditions with this, so that a condition may especially affect certain rolls. For those rolls, the bonus/penalty would be doubled.

Some examples:

Blessed is a +1 condition that especially applies to saves vs fear. Thus, the character applies a +1 bonus to all d20 rolls, or +2 to saves vs fear.

Encumbered is a -1 condition that especially applies to Athletics. Thus, the character applies a -1 penalty to all d20 rolls, or -2 to Athletics checks.

Having unified that, I would be inclined to do away with ability drain and damage, ability boosting spells and magic items, and even ability increases by level (and maybe even wish) entirely. Remove ability checks as well (in favour of skill checks for everything), and thus make the ability scores a purely descriptive aspect of the character.

However, by the time you've done all that (and followed it through the system as a whole), you're getting towards putting together an entirely new version of the game!

 

[billd91]

Heck no. I still enjoy the flexibility stat damage gives me to hamper the PCs in ways not necessarily fatal.

In fact, stat damage was an ideal way for me to translate 1e's Dungeons of the Slavelords into 3.5. Rather than say that characters had burned spells by fiat (how exactly do you do that for spontaneous casters anyway?), I was able to say that the Slavelords kept the spellcasting PCs drugged, leaving stat damage that prevented their casting stat to be over 11 on the first day of the escape.

 

[Magesmiley]

Personally, I think that it works pretty well, especially compared to how things like poison worked in earlier editions (save or die). It is pretty nasty to low-level parties (the stirge in particular comes to mind), as they often don't have access to spells to quickly fix the injuries.

 

[Greg K]

I don't have a problem with it. It makes sense for the genre. However, I use the variant presented in the 3.0 DMG- rather than reduce the stat itself, the character accumulates penalties to rolls associated with the attribute (for strength, I also reduce how much the character can lift). Some other OGL games use the DMG variant as well and it works better.

 

[Greenfield]

Quick solution #1: Don't recalculate, just note the damage/drain and how much of a penalty it gives, then apply that penalty like any other.

Quick solution #2: Don't use any undead, venomous creatures, Wounding weapons, poisons, or draining spells in your game.

Quick solution #3: Play 4e.


I prefer to just note the penalties and keep going, but that's just me.