Anyone else really dislike Ability Damage & Ability Drain?

[NaturalFn20]

I can generally get these things jotted down before my turn comes up in the next round.

I do hate how vampires ruin your Con simply by drinking blood. Blood should replenish over time. And I've never liked negative levels (far worse in pre-3e).

Hahaha, I just had this problem a few weeks ago in one of my campaigns. Ran into a vampire that just kept hitting me with negative levels. Man, it's annoying, but I think having these cool things happen make the game more exciting. Makes undead more fearsome, especially if you have a cleric that can just turn them. Let's be honest. If you're a straight cleric or have turning feats (kinda' funny actually since a lot of clerics get rid of turning attemps for other skills), you can destroy undead pretty easily. Even strong ones with a good roll. Their +2 turn defense really isn't that much.

 

[Jhaelen]

With all due respect, I'm hearing a lot of "math is hard!".

THis isn't about "math is hard!". The math is easy enough.

If you get whacked with X to str, takes a minute to flip to the page in the PHB (or SRD) that has the encumbrance table.

It's about this (the bolded part): Every tiny little thing you have to look up will take a minute or more.

I agree that Dispel Magic is more annoying than ability drain. I've had two recent examples that showcased it:
- an encounter with a CR 16 mindflayer cleric, entering the encounter with a whopping 22 buff spells/powers active. The first three rounds were spent doing little more than both sides trying to debuff the other as well as they could.
- an encounter with three psi-killers to soften the party up (three area dispels every round) followed by a trio of mind flayers.

These encounters felt more exhausting than exciting to me. Now the obvious rebuke would be: 'then don't use encounters like that!' To which my reply would be: 'then you might as well stop playing, because only these kind of encounters will be challenging at high levels' (at least IME and IMHO ).

And, yeah, just because there is something that is even more annoying doesn't mean ability drain isn't annoying, too!

 

[slwoyach]

I've never had any of these problems people talk about nor have I ever gamed with anyone who had these problems. If you lose strength it affects your attack, damage, skill rolls and encumbrance. The only one of those things you need to look up is encumbrance, and only if you're close to your limit or you lose a lot of strength. All the other ability scores are even less troublesome than strength. Not once in 10 years of playing 3e did a game come to a screeching halt or even become significantly slowed down by ability damage/drain.

Level drain is the thing I have a problem with, it:

A) Is crippling, depending on class far moreso than ability damage.
B) Is a true math nightmare, much more goes into losing levels than losing ability points.
C) Is completely nonsensical. Your "experience" level is based upon your knowledge and "experience." The only logical explanation for level loss is to lose the knowledge and experience that grants your level, meaning it would have to wipe your memory clean. I wouldn't object to a creature or spell that did so, but it would wipe everything else as well. If you're 8th level and get knocked down to 6th level then you should also lose all memories of everything that occured since 6th level. If the entire party loses levels that would lead to a really confusing "why are we here?" moment.

 

[slwoyach]

THis isn't about "math is hard!". The math is easy enough.
It's about this (the bolded part): Every tiny little thing you have to look up will take a minute or more.

Actually, every complaint we've heard has been "math is hard." Look up? What are you looking up? Don't you know what skills and saves are affected by what stats? Don't you know what maximum spell level is allowed by your relevant ability? Don't you know what the ability requirements for your feats are? What exactly besides encumbrance do you need to look up?

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

Actually, every complaint we've heard has been "math is hard."

Actually, no not every complaint is "math is hard". Most of the complaints are "it's a pain in the ass to do this". There's a difference. People like myself aren't stupid, we don't feel like having to go through and recalculate stuff. It might not bother you, you might like doing it, whatever.

Look up? What are you looking up? Don't you know what skills and saves are affected by what stats? Don't you know what maximum spell level is allowed by your relevant ability? Don't you know what the ability requirements for your feats are? What exactly besides encumbrance do you need to look up?

Honestly, no. Not everyone actually does bother memorizing every single little thing on their sheet. I know it's shocking, but there you have it. Sometimes, the people playing D&D? They're not hardcore. The figure this stuff out every 13 or 14 sessions at level up when they have to and they don't think about it again.

Additionally, if you happen to play a fighter like I frequently do, you've got things like Power Attack already figured out. So that way during play, instead of having to calculate everything every time you use Power Attack (and then have to deal with the hardcore player whining about "why isn't this already pre-calculated?!?!?" or "Why do you always have to redo the math, it's obvious!!!") we just look down at the appropriate line for the weapon, and we know everything we need to with Weapon Specialization and Weapon Focus and everything else all nice and ready. Ability damage comes along and then we then have to stop and refigure those calculations.

I have experienced problems with this in multiple groups; both as a GM and as a player. I've known a number of GMs that just won't use certain creatures or spells for that reason as well. The fact that you've never experienced the problem doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

 

[Dandu]

Psh, spare me your whining. Back in my day, we calculated all our stats on papyrus, we did, using a thin hollow reed as a pen and our own blood as the ink, without centralized heating, a solid roof, or indoor plumbing!

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

Psh, spare me your whining. Back in my day, we calculated all our stats on papyrus, we did, using a thin hollow reed as a pen and our own blood as the ink, without centralized heating, a solid roof, or indoor plumbing!

You forgot that we also had to use dice made from the bones of the sabertooth tigers that we killed with our bare hands, after having lured them into a false sense of security by letting them chew on a leg. Yeah, I've been kicking around a while. Not as long as some gamers, but 24 years is long enough.

Certainly there's more complicated systems out there and all, I personally just get slightly irked when one of the hardcore gamers shows up and starts implying people are stupid or something just because not everyone wants to put as much effort into gaming as the hardcore folks. I used to see this same sort of attitude back when the wargamers were all dismissive of the rpgers and it bugged me then too.

I'm not even going to talk about some of the arguements I've seen regarding hex vs non-hex. Sheesh.

 

[billd91]

You forgot that we also had to use dice made from the bones of the sabertooth tigers that we killed with our bare hands, after having lured them into a false sense of security by letting them chew on a leg. Yeah, I've been kicking around a while. Not as long as some gamers, but 24 years is long enough.

Dice? Sheesh. I remember when D&D came with chits you had to draw out of a cup. None of this new-fangled sabertooth dice stuff.

 

[Jhaelen]

Not everyone actually does bother memorizing every single little thing on their sheet. I know it's shocking, but there you have it. Sometimes, the people playing D&D? They're not hardcore. The figure this stuff out every 13 or 14 sessions at level up when they have to and they don't think about it again.

Exactly!
That describes most players in my group (a group of nine, I should note), excepting one or two who sometimes even visit internet boards.

The rest doesn't even play D&D most of the time! (Here in Germany it's definitely not the most popular RPG system).

So, maybe my situation is unusual but about the time the first PCs were hitting level 13, combat slowed down noticably. Taking one hour to finish a single round of combat is not unheard of.

 

[slwoyach]

Actually, no not every complaint is "math is hard". Most of the complaints are "it's a pain in the ass to do this". There's a difference. People like myself aren't stupid, we don't feel like having to go through and recalculate stuff. It might not bother you, you might like doing it, whatever.



Honestly, no. Not everyone actually does bother memorizing every single little thing on their sheet. I know it's shocking, but there you have it. Sometimes, the people playing D&D? They're not hardcore. The figure this stuff out every 13 or 14 sessions at level up when they have to and they don't think about it again.

Additionally, if you happen to play a fighter like I frequently do, you've got things like Power Attack already figured out. So that way during play, instead of having to calculate everything every time you use Power Attack (and then have to deal with the hardcore player whining about "why isn't this already pre-calculated?!?!?" or "Why do you always have to redo the math, it's obvious!!!") we just look down at the appropriate line for the weapon, and we know everything we need to with Weapon Specialization and Weapon Focus and everything else all nice and ready. Ability damage comes along and then we then have to stop and refigure those calculations.

I have experienced problems with this in multiple groups; both as a GM and as a player. I've known a number of GMs that just won't use certain creatures or spells for that reason as well. The fact that you've never experienced the problem doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

You don't need to be "hardcore" to know these things, look at your character sheet! Every skill tells you what abilities are used with them. It says what ability goes with what save on it. How many feats do you have that you can't remember what needs a minimum ability? Even a casual gamer would know these things after only a couple months of playing. It really isn't hard and there isn't a lot to remember, d20 is actually an extremely easy system. It was designed to be easy and they succeeded.