Death Ward vrs Wraith's Con Drain?

[Legildur]

Does Death Ward protect against a Dread Wraith's Constitution Drain?

We had trouble adjudicating whether the Con Drain was a negative energy effect.

Death Ward (Necromancy)
The subject is immune to all death spells, magical death effects, energy drain, and any negative energy effects.

Constitution Drain (Su)
Living creatures hit by a dread wraith’s incorporeal touch attack must succeed on a DC 25 Fortitude save or take 1d8 points of Constitution drain. The save DC is Charisma-based. On each such successful attack, the dread wraith gains 5 temporary hit points.

Some undead specifically call out their draining Special Attacks as a "negative energy effect", but not wraiths.

In the end we decided that Death Ward was ineffective against the Constitution Drain of a Dread Wraith. Was this right? (or should that be wight?)

 

[Klaus]

Does Death Ward protect against a Dread Wraith's Constitution Drain?

We had trouble adjudicating whether the Con Drain was a negative energy effect.

Some undead specifically call out their draining Special Attacks as a "negative energy effect", but not wraiths.

In the end we decided that Death Ward was ineffective against the Constitution Drain of a Dread Wraith. Was this right? (or should that be wight?)

No. If Death Ward said it protected against "ability damage" and "ability drain", then yes.

 

[Andras]

Sheltered Vitality (SpC) will protect against ability damage and drain.

 

[eamon]

If you interpret death ward to protect against such an attack, it protects against almost all undead attacks and gets very very powerful. I would only let it protect against those explicitly labelled as negative energy. Heck, just protection from energy drain is good enough....

 

[Legildur]

Great! We got it right! Thanks all.