D&D 5E Level drains, old school adventures and 5e - a proposed alternative?

[Ancalagon]

Hello

So I'm working on this "forested ruins" scenario, in which the characters may encounter a Preta - the spirit of a very greedy person now forced to consumed foul things (this is from Yoon-Suin). Should the PCs decide to engage the thing in combat, they will find it is hard to injure and that it has a dreadful power - its touch drains levels!

However, this is using the "old school" stats from the setting. I looked at level drain (edit: now called life drain) in 5e and I see it's changed. On one hand I'm happy because I always felt level draining was too harsh a power and it really sucked for the players to have their characters penalized for a looong time (because by the time you've regained your level, your companions have leveled up!). On the other hand, the 5e version feels... underwhelming.

I thought about a compromise: its touch doesn't drain level, but a flat amount of XP (they are level 3 so I was thinking 50 or 100). This way they don't lose a whole level, but it still hurts and the players will want to avoid this attack like heck.

I'm also thinking that in general, this could scale well - a powerful undead would drain more XP, and a powerful hero would be more resilient to XP drain than a low level one.

Sounds good, or are there pitfalls I'm missing?

thanks!

 

[CapnZapp]

Well, since not using xp at all (instead using milestone levelling) is gaining in popularity, this won't work for everybody.

I suggest you look at those undead that drain maximum hit points instead (where 7 points of damage also lowers your max hp by the same amount). "Life drain" or somesuch. My players certainly exhibited the desired behavior when fighting some of those.

 

[marcelvdpol]

There are a number of Undead that "drain" something. This could be Maximum hit points or an Ability.

Maximum hit point drain is quite scary, especially on lower levels when characters still don't have a lot of hit points. Usually, an attack that hits by a monster is followed by a Constitution save; if failed the damage also drains maximum hit points. This is quite scary; i once had a Bladesinger killed in one blow by a Critical hit from a Wight that drained 30+ maximum hit points, instakilling the Bladesinger with one hit.

Ability drain is also quite bad as it impacts your effectiveness in combat. Strength drain for a Barbarian is scary as his to hit rolls and damage are reduced, reducing his effectiveness. Strength drain against a character that doesn't use Strength is less scary but usually the Ability score is low and when the character is reduced to zero Strength he dies.

You could drain other things as well; Wisdom drain could result in the character being very poor at some quite important skills and if he uses Widsom for his Magic he could be in a lot of trouble.

All in all i find the 5th edition drains to be quite scary. If you want to increase the scaryness, make the characters recover from the drain more slowly (standard 5th edition drains are recovered from a single long rest) by increasing the number of long rests required to heal. Other way would be that the drain remains until the character reaches the next level or until some quest item that cures it is found.

One other way to drain is by giving the character Exhaustion, impacting his effectiveness and Exhaustion is cumulative. One level of exhaustion can still be handled but by the time your level of exhaustion is up to 3 your effectiveness is greatly reduced.

In any case, in Curse of Strahd there are some encounters with these types of undead and the environment severly limits the amount of long rests available, thus making drain abilities very scary.

 

[Leatherhead]

Exhaustion and/or hit dice imo.

 

[Krachek]

spell slot, Ki point, sorcery point, manœuvre dice, inspiration dice.
They are all equals so players may whim, but they will remember.

 

[Draegn]

In my game, if struck players have to make an instant saving throw otherwise they're incompacitated and have a number of hours equal to their constitution before they turn.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I thought about a compromise: its touch doesn't drain level, but a flat amount of XP (they are level 3 so I was thinking 50 or 100). This way they don't lose a whole level, but it still hurts and the players will want to avoid this attack like heck.

I'm also thinking that in general, this could scale well - a powerful undead would drain more XP, and a powerful hero would be more resilient to XP drain than a low level one.

Sounds good, or are there pitfalls I'm missing?

For the past year or so I've been running it as: undead that drain max HP, drain that max HP until you take a long rest and pay 100 XP per point of max HP restored*. So there's both a short term and a long term penalty, but nothing as harsh as classic level draining. It works well. Players don't take undead casually because they do still make you fall behind, but no more than staying home for a session does, so it doesn't ruin long-term enjoyment.

I haven't had any problems and I don't think you will either, unless your problem is "players aren't as scared of this as I want them to be." Because this kind of XP drain doesn't produce Lovecraftian levels of fear and repugnance, which from the name "Yoon-Suin" I wonder if you are aiming for.

* Creatures without XP, such as cows, simply suffer permanent max HP loss unless/until they can find some way to regain that XP. Yes, this has come up in play. The players captured a lifejammer from neogi and fueled it with cows.

 

[Inchoroi]

Your best bet is to look at the Shadow in the Monster Manual. On a successful hit, it does some damage and drains 1d4 Strength, which return when the character take a long rest.

 

[jaelis]

Exhaustion and/or hit dice imo.

Exhaustion is a good one for sure. But I think max hp are better than hit dice. The nastier you want the beastie to be, the harder you make the hp to get back.

 

[Ancalagon]

Bah, I wrote this last night and lifedrain, the one that drains max HP, is the one that left me feeling underwhelmed. But I wrote level drain instead. I'll edit the post