D&D 4E Remove level drain from 4e!!

[Moggthegob]

i like level drain and death as punishment mechanics. The players always fear them and never quite want to have to pay for a raise dead or lose their hard-fought XP. It makes them really want to survive and find ways aroudn encounters instead of using plan A all the time...

also My vampires are alot more vile than most. as they deal unhealable damage unless you get a cure spell on a consecrated sight making a fight with a vampire very live or die. I still have level drain around too but with vampires I do have the "death within 24 hours clause"

 

[Gargoyle]

I'm going to go old-school and say "I like my darned level drain." Heck, I wish they would bring the AD&D level drain back. As a player, and a DM, nothing scare ME, not my character, ME, more when playing the game than rumors of a wraith or vampire being in the location of my next adventure. Kind of like a Jenga pull in Dread, that risk of doing the wrong thing and having an undead smack you for level loss (that could be restored, with spells) was just mean, and ultimately led to some great stories where our groups went through all sorts of contortions to avoid the undead beastie and trying to douse it with holy water/ bury it in sunlight / release it from its curse / whatever, because NO ONE wanted to face the damn thing in direct combat.

That was just my experience with it. It may have been "unfun", but it was because of that why we actively sought to avoid it.

The fact that draining levels induces fear in players is the only legitimate reason to have it in the first place...I like that effect. And I think that restoration spells / negative levels just declawed the effect. But I wouldn't want it back. For every enjoyable memory of encounters with level draining creatures, I'm betting anyone can recall at least two other times where there was only frustration.

Now if they can create some mechanics that cause the same type of fear (player's fear, not character's) from powerful undead creatures without the frustration and clunky rules that slow everything down, I'd be all for that.

 

[The Grackle]

You know, if they carry over the condition track from Star Wars: Saga Edition (and I see no reason why they wouldn't), you could model energy draining very nicely by treating it as causing persistent (i.e., lasting until cured in some fashion) steps down said track.

So what is this condition track thing anyway? I think i get the idea, but can someone explain how it works?

 

[Korgoth]

I'm going to go old-school and say "I like my darned level drain." Heck, I wish they would bring the AD&D level drain back. As a player, and a DM, nothing scare ME, not my character, ME, more when playing the game than rumors of a wraith or vampire being in the location of my next adventure. Kind of like a Jenga pull in Dread, that risk of doing the wrong thing and having an undead smack you for level loss (that could be restored, with spells) was just mean, and ultimately led to some great stories where our groups went through all sorts of contortions to avoid the undead beastie and trying to douse it with holy water/ bury it in sunlight / release it from its curse / whatever, because NO ONE wanted to face the damn thing in direct combat.

That was just my experience with it. It may have been "unfun", but it was because of that why we actively sought to avoid it.

Agreed. Level draining undead are a sure sign that you should be running the other direction. If they're just another "damage dealer" then they're not that scary: it's just an ogre that walks through walls. If getting touched by them permanently hoses your character at his very core... then you want to get very, very far away from this unnatural thing! And only deliberately face it when you've completely done your homework and are ready to ace the thing before it even has a chance.

I don't have a "conceptual" problem with level drain. Like Frodo's 'Morgul fever' or whatever you want to call it, a level-draining experience leaves the character both physically and spiritually weakened. It's a life-altering experience (for the worse). You're not vigorous as you used to be (loss of HP and fighting ability), nor as mentally adroit (those more complex spells you used to be able to hold in your brain fight against you now, and you can't memorize them). You are even spiritually weakened (not able to muster the necessary zeal and elan to channel the greater works of the divine). Eventually, through hard work, you'll be able to compensate for these new weaknesses and effectively make up your lost ground. But it will be a difficult, imperfect process.

 

[Lanefan]

If 4e stays with the current 'characters are easy to kill, and easy to resurrect' style (and I hope that they don't), then I might consider having each death permanently lower the maximum condition category of the rezzed character. Each death and subsequent resurrection 'stretches' the soul: After several of them, that soul is stretched so thin, it is unable to return at all. This also will help me explain why important NPCs and even villians can't continually be re-raised. Just a random thought that occurred to me while reading...

1e already had this, in effect, with the hard-and-fast rule that no matter what else happened, a character could not be brought back from the dead more times than its original Con. score. If that's still too many, just make it half the Con. score. The soul-stretching bit provides a fine in-game rationale for this rule.

Somewhat back on topic, a similar explanation could do for level-draining as well...the wraith just stole some of your soul and you're not quite the elf you used to be.

Lanefan

 

[jasin]

So what is this condition track thing anyway? I think i get the idea, but can someone explain how it works?

A quick summary: instead of different status effects like sickened, shaken, fatigued you just have a track that goes +0/-1/-2/-5/-10/unconscious (or something similar), and effects move you along the track. The exact effect is just flavour text. Losing sleep and being scared would have the same game effect as being scared and distracted by a terrible stench: in both cases, it's two steps down the condition track, so -2 to everything, the effects would just be described differently.

Really bad effects might move you more than one step.

 

[jasin]

Now if they can create some mechanics that cause the same type of fear (player's fear, not character's) from powerful undead creatures without the frustration and clunky rules that slow everything down, I'd be all for that.

How about negative levels without actual level loss?

 

[hong]

There's nothing particularly "scary" about level drain, assuming you have restoration. It's only scary because it requires a 4th level spell to get rid of, whereas you can sleep off hit point loss. As a player, I generally find brute monsters that deal 200+ points per round much scarier, because of the possibility of being killed by a single full attack. No level draining monster can do that.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

A quick summary: instead of different status effects like sickened, shaken, fatigued you just have a track that goes +0/-1/-2/-5/-10/unconscious (or something similar), and effects move you along the track. The exact effect is just flavour text. Losing sleep and being scared would have the same game effect as being scared and distracted by a terrible stench: in both cases, it's two steps down the condition track, so -2 to everything, the effects would just be described differently.

Really bad effects might move you more than one step.

Also, some conditions are "persistent," meaning they stay around until some condition is met.

Say, for level drain, that condition could be "until a Restoration spell is cast on the character."

Way, way WAY more elegant (and way way WAY less time-consuming at the table) than having to refigure your entire sheet if you get a permanent level drain.

 

[Henry]

As a player, I generally find brute monsters that deal 200+ points per round much scarier, because of the possibility of being killed by a single full attack. No level draining monster can do that.

For me, it's never bothered me. If I get killed, there's a resurrection or raise dead just around the corner, with a maximum of one level lost, not a big deal, especially with D&D's XP progression (how lower level characters get more XP than higher level ones until they are caught up). At worst, I can always retire my character and make a new one. With level loss, about the only way to recover in the old days was to either get a 7th level spell cast on you, or to retire your character and start a new one at a lower level (most DMs I played started us around one level lower). Even negative levels in 3E were somewhat intimidating because of that diminishing power effect (the -1 penalties, the spell loss, etc.). You can have scores or dozens of hit points; you only have a handful of levels.

Level drain across the editions serve kind of like poison counters for Magic the Gathering: You can have 1000 life, and keep getting whacked, but you can only have TEN poison counters - and the ways to remove them aren't often common in constructed magic decks. I've seen magic players get visibly worried when they encounter well-made poison decks, because they've often built in NO counters for this play style.