Making a save v Negative Level

[orion90000]

A fighter got hit by a spectre and made both fortitude saves to avoid negative levels... does the spectre still get +10 hp? (+5 for each negative level)

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Only if the negative levels affected the target would it gain temporary hp.

Special Abilities :: d20srd.org

"The creature making an energy drain attack draws a portion of its victim’s life force from her. Most energy drain attacks require a successful melee attack roll—mere physical contact is not enough. Each successful energy drain bestows one or more negative levels (the creature’s description specifies how many). "

 

[Empirate]

nonono, the way it works is this:

1. Spectre makes attack, hits.

2. Fighter gets 2 negative levels without rolling a save or anything. It's automatic. Fighter takes the usual penalties associated with that.

3. Spectre gets 10 temporary HP.

4. 24 hours pass. If Fighter survives, go to 5. If not, this is where it ends.

5. Fighter (who has survived) makes two Fort saves to remove the negative levels. If he passes these saves, he's fine, and the penalties associated with negative levels go away. If he fails his saves, he loses two actual character levels, which sucks hard. Recalculate all his stats to account for this.


For your convenience, here's the SRD's text on this:

Energy Drain And Negative Levels

Some horrible creatures, especially undead monsters, possess a fearsome supernatural ability to drain levels from those they strike in combat. The creature making an energy drain attack draws a portion of its victim’s life force from her. Most energy drain attacks require a successful melee attack roll—mere physical contact is not enough. Each successful energy drain bestows one or more negative levels (the creature’s description specifies how many). If an attack that includes an energy drain scores a critical hit, it drains twice the given amount. A creature gains 5 temporary hit points (10 on a critical hit) for each negative level it bestows (though not if the negative level is caused by a spell or similar effect). These temporary hit points last for a maximum of 1 hour.
A creature takes the following penalties for each negative level it has gained:

• -1 on all skill checks and ability checks.
• -1 on attack rolls and saving throws.
• -5 hit points.
• -1 effective level (whenever the creature’s level is used in a die roll or calculation, reduce it by one for each negative level).
• If the victim casts spells, she loses access to one spell as if she had cast her highest-level, currently available spell. (If she has more than one spell at her highest level, she chooses which she loses.) In addition, when she next prepares spells or regains spell slots, she gets one less spell slot at her highest spell level.

Negative levels remain until 24 hours have passed or until they are removed with a spell, such as restoration. If a negative level is not removed before 24 hours have passed, the affected creature must attempt a Fortitude save (DC 10 + ½ draining creature’s racial HD + draining creature’s Cha modifier; the exact DC is given in the creature’s descriptive text). On a success, the negative level goes away with no harm to the creature. On a failure, the negative level goes away, but the creature’s level is also reduced by one. A separate saving throw is required for each negative level.
A character with negative levels at least equal to her current level, or drained below 1st level, is instantly slain. Depending on the creature that killed her, she may rise the next night as a monster of that kind. If not, she rises as a wight.

 

[frankthedm]

It's odd, the notion a character gets a save to avoid the initial level drain crops up once in a while. It is almost as if folks misread the entry in the hope there is some way to stop the energy drain. It is not just the Font of Life feat either, since these assumptions predate that feat.

 

[Runestar]

Perhaps they are confusing it with the ability drain of certain undead like the wraith, which does allow a save?

 

[orion90000]

The Problem was not reading the glossary in the back on how it works. The monster's page just says: Energy Drain (Su) Living creatures hit by a spectre’s incorporeal touch attack gain two negative levels. The DC is 15 for the Fortitude save to remove a negative level. The save DC is Charisma-based. For each such negative level bestowed, the spectre gains 5 temporary hit points.

Simply reading the monster's description seems to imply that you can immediately remove it since it leaves out the "after 24 hours" portion.

So many questions would be avoided if the game creators simply inserted a few examples of how the complex features of the game worked instead of describing the mechanics of them.

 

[Empirate]

True enough, I can never get over how the redundancy of some descriptions clashes with the sparse information of some others.

Energy Drain always works the same way, and is described in the DMG, so the designers probably thought their description in the Spectre's MM entry was enough - which it obviously isn't, or questions such as yours wouldn't pop up.

On other occasions, you can read the same goddamn text over and over and over again until you want to cry "I get it already!" For example, how many times have you read the ongoing spellcasting progression text in PrC descriptions? A general rule concerning spellcasting-progression-by-PrC could have saved a lot of trees...