D&D 5E Exhaustion for old 1e undead level drain

[dmgorgon]

Level drain needs to be real and permanent without a restoration spell. Not some dicey supper power you get from resting.

Nothing like getting drained to death from a vampire in Ravenloft. Completely terrifying and rightfully so.

 

[Lyxen]

Nothing like getting drained to death from a vampire in Ravenloft. Completely terrifying and rightfully so.

It's not terrifying, it's annoying as hell and totally stops the fun since you become unable to finish the adventure. This was our real experience in I6. It really was a stupid module, with sentences like "Strahd attacks a single PC for 5 melee rounds, then leaves." Since it's for levels 5-7, that's one dead PC, and even if he survives, he is unable to do anything in the rest of the adventure. And I'm not speaking of the number of vampires, wraiths and banshees in the rest of the castle.

So no, it was a very bad mechanic even when used sparingly, and even worse in Ravenloft.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

It might have been from a time where new characters started at level 1, not the level of the group, I guess. Because the solution to having a character reduced to utter suckiness I have seen is a (either assumed, or blatant) suicidal behaviour in order to have the change character... A mechanism where the player is no longer having fun and must take time to start having fun again is worse than death, litterally.

I remember the play example in a RQ book where the character followed since character creation was a warrior, got his STR stat drained and turned into a shaman (because it was introducing the magic chapter). I immediately thought no sane player would do that and just retire the character if they wanted to play a warrior... It was the product of a time, I guess, and I am not looking forward to permanent consequences again.

 

[Lyxen]

It might have been from a time where new characters started at level 1, not the level of the group, I guess. Because the solution to having a character reduced to utter suckiness I have seen is a (either assumed, or blatant) suicidal behaviour in order to have the change character... A mechanism where the player is no longer having fun and must take time to start having fun again is worse than death, litterally.

Indeed. Moreover, the Ravenloft setting (and in particular the original module) imposes restrictions on new characters joining the party, in particular if you want a consistent story. The ultimate example of that being Call of Cthulhu, where there is such turnover that there is no reason for new characters to understand the situation and the history, even less bother about it.

I remember the play example in a RQ book where the character followed since character creation was a warrior, got his STR stat drained and turned into a shaman (because it was introducing the magic chapter). I immediately thought no sane player would do that and just retire the character if they wanted to play a warrior... It was the product of a time, I guess, and I am not looking forward to permanent consequences again.

On the other hand, in RQ, there are no class restrictions, and it's possible to have such shifts in career, it happened once or twice in our campaigns. The availability of training to reach a competent level is also something that RQ manages well, including the associated downtime. But D&D has always had a different focus.

 

[Li Shenron]

There is a reason stat damage and drain has not made the cut in 5e, because it imposes on the fly recomputation of bonuses and tracking those, which significantly complicates and slows down the game.

Not true. Or rather, true if you are a fool enough to pre-calculate every possible stat, in an edition where almost everything is affected only by one ability modifier plus the same single proficiency bonus for everything.

Because of this, 5e is by far the easiest edition for supporting ability score damage.

 

[Voadam]

There is a reason stat damage and drain has not made the cut in 5e, because it imposes on the fly recomputation of bonuses and tracking those, which significantly complicates and slows down the game. This is why "CON Drain" has been modified into "max hit point loss", which is slightly easier to track.

I agree that stat damage is a speedbump pain in every edition it shows up in, but 5e still has core stat damage.

From the MM shadow:

Strength Drain. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 9 (2d6 + 2) necrotic damage, and the target's Strength score is reduced by 1d4. The target dies if this reduces its Strength to 0. Otherwise, the reduction lasts until the target finishes a short or long rest.

As for HD loss, the problem is that they don't hurt the PC on the spot, only future recovery, so it's not really scary, unless you say something like "at 0 HD, you die" ?

AD&D ghosts' big thing was they aged you, which might or might not have hurt you on the spot.

HD loss is less of a penalty than 4e healing surge loss as almost all healing in 4e was based on healing surges instead of it being an extra way to heal, but I felt healing surge loss in 4e as a kicker damage was a big impact on how far people were willing to go in an adventuring day even if it was not usually an immediate in the fight impact.

 

[Lyxen]

Not true. Or rather, true if you are a fool enough to pre-calculate every possible stat, in an edition where almost everything is affected only by one ability modifier plus the same single proficiency bonus for everything.

Because of this, 5e is by far the easiest edition for supporting ability score damage.

Except that even that goes against the 5e philosophy of not having modifiers on rolls, or limiting these to the maximum. And even if it's one recalculation on the fly, it is still slowing the game down. This is why the shadow is the only monster (out of previous editions monsters, poisons, spells, etc.) that affects a stat. All the other has been thrown away in favour of Adv/Dis which is way faster and imposes no recalculations.

So yes, it would be easier in5, but still not something that was deemed desirable. But don't get me wrong, I love 5e and the simplification, but there are a few areas (some tags, the magic types and this) where I agree that it would not have been hard to keep in. It would still have made the game more complicated and would have slowed down play, so I see the point.

 

[Lyxen]

I agree that stat damage is a speedbump pain in every edition it shows up in, but 5e still has core stat damage.

And that is the only one.

Strength Drain. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 9 (2d6 + 2) necrotic damage, and the target's Strength score is reduced by 1d4. The target dies if this reduces its Strength to 0. Otherwise, the reduction lasts until the target finishes a short or long rest.

Note that it does not even say to recompute bonuses. It's sort of obvious in a sense, but since the mechanism is explained nowhere else, it's still a complete oddity.

 

[Bedrockgames]

....while no-one wants to go back to real level drain.

It is definitely not popular, but there are fans. I prefer level drain myself. It made undead terrifying because nothing quite hits you like losing levels.

 

[Lyxen]

It is definitely not popular, but there are fans. I prefer level drain myself. It made undead terrifying because nothing quite hits you like losing levels.

But which version ? Are there still that many people playing hardcore AD&D 1 level drain ? Where there is almost no way to get it back and you have to continue adventuring with other characters 2 or 4 levels above you ? It worked for us as a club at the time, because even drained characters could adventure with other characters of their level from other people in other modules. But are there still people playing that way ?