Well obviously most of the people in this forum are going to disagree with you OP. Don't let it stop you if this is what you want to do at your table. You are brave for posting something like this on such a serious forum
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I certainly feel like some people are thinking I kill babies or something. Perhaps I should have used a different example on how to scare the players. One of my beefs with 4e is that there is no 'fear' in D&D anymore. The non-swingyness of the combat (a subject for another blog post), plus how difficult it is for a PC to die...and then the lack of any significant consequences if they do, just makes combat less threatening.
I liked it when every so often the PCs would say "Oh crap...we are SO in trouble". For me as a player waaaaaaaaaaay back when, Wights were one of those monsters that would incite a reaction like that.
This was definitely a 'if you want to try this, this is something that you can use'.
I have gotten some good feedback though, and will be posting a revised version. I think that the mere fact that one can aquire failed Death Saves while concious might be good enough, in addition to the healing surge loss.
In some campaigns (especially horror campaigns) the heroes should not be completely fantastical, but should feel genuinely afraid of what the world can do to them. Level drain mechanics, lycanthropy, mummy rot, all have the ability to do this. I remember the 3e Ravenloft supplement talking about how 'unlike regular DnD, curing lycanthropy in Ravenloft is almost impossible'.
Well, the Disease mechanic (actually more with how easy it is to cure them) is another sore spot of mine.
My own two cents: I would never introduce a permanent level drain mechanic in my campaigns. At worst I would impose 'negative levels' similar to diseases that might only be curable with a specific ritual or with the aid of some special herbs etc. Permanently devaluing a PC makes the player want to die and rebuild. This is doubly true in 4e where parties are intended to be all the same level and all roughly equal in power. Heck, I don't even track experience these days, the party levels up when I say they do, and always all at once. Being party level -1 really stinks.
I hear you. That said, one of the other points in the blog post was that you needed to add a Ritual akin to Restoration. It's ironic to me that the vast majority of players would rather die and start a new character than lose a single level. There's some interesting psychology there I think.
Remember, there is only a 1/8 chance out of any successful hit actually causing a level drain, and that any controller worth their salt should have the ability to immobilize one of these monsters. That means that perhaps a monster like this should be of higher level, so as to have the controller PC more likely to have something that can lock it down.
The whole point is the _threat_ of level drain. But even if it should occur, there is that Restoration ritual (or heck, you could just use Remove Affliction too). No level drain is permanent.
I'm kinda thinking that some people reading this and seeing the words Energy Drain suddenly just see red and start frothing at the mouth without actually reading the entire post.
