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

[Adso]

Level draining is a clunky, broken and utterly unfun metagame mechanic from a bygone era. It needs to be removed from the game for a plethora of reasons.

Agreed.

 

[Green Knight]

At the seminar, Andy Collins was talking about XP. As he said, it's a measure of your level, not a resource to be spent, and as such, magic item creation no longer costs XP. At that point, one of the other designers (I think it was Rich Baker, but I can't be sure) added that there are no more monsters that "eat XP."

I cannot interpret that in any way other than meaning no more level drain.

God, I hope that's the case! Good riddance to bad mechanics. At the very least I want to see the Vampire's Slam Attack gone. I get mad just thinking about Vampire's and their ability to bitch slap the levels out of the PC's.

 

[blargney the second]

Over here, we kill anyone who behaves in a hostile manner.

... and take their stuff!

I'm not a fan of level drains on either side of the Screen of Fear & Ignorance. I don't mind enervation too much, but permanently losing hard-earned XP sucks.
-blarg

 

[Treebore]

I cannot beleive people are complaining about level draining. Let me guess, you all allowed level draining but didn't allow for restorations to be made available.

Here is a rule of DMing I follow, if I am going to throw something at them that will cripple their characters, such as level loss, stat loss, I made darn sure that a means to recover the losses in a reasonable amount of time existed. Such as finding scrolls, an high level friend/allie, etc... Plus I also have a house rule that if you kill the Vampire (or whatever drained your levels) within 24 hours you got your "life force" back.

The rules aren't broken, just the DM's ability to deal with the problem is lacking. The problem is with the PC's, not the system.

Oh, wait, I guess the system is at fault because it didn't tell you how to do it?

I agree with Eric on Raise Dead, I eliminated all such penalties long ago. Dying is enough of a "lesson". Always has been. I even eliminated the CON loss back in 2E.

Simple fixes. Better then buying into a new rules set to tell me how to fix it. If it even does, or just cops out by getting rid of it altogether.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

The group I've almost always played with since OD&D almost views level drains as worse than death. Needless to say, it doesn't happen much in our games. But, the PC's are currently in a cavernous dungeon labrynth that's pretty much ruled by a vampire. And, they made the vampire angry, so...

 

[WhatGravitas]

God, I hope that's the case! Good riddance to bad mechanics. At the very least I want to see the Vampire's Slam Attack gone. I get mad just thinking about Vampire's and their ability to bitch slap the levels out of the PC's.

Ooohh yeees!

Vampires have to suck blood, not levels!

And for level drain: It sucks hard. It's only scary the first time, then it becomes an annoying, boring thing.

Instead of the concept of negative levels, ability damage is good to simulate that. Perhaps ability damage to multiple abilities at once (to simulate that all-encompassing drain of energy).

Cheers, LT.

 

[Tiberius]

It only takes a 7th level cleric to cast Restoration, and he's got 1 week time to remove all the drained levels.

True, but the spell does have the unfortunate "you're restored to the minimum amount of XP for your level" clause, so it sucks way more to get level-drained when you're 100 XP away from your next level than when you've just hit your new level.

A character who has a level restored by restoration has exactly the minimum number of experience points necessary to restore him or her to his or her previous level.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I cannot beleive people are complaining about level draining. Let me guess, you all allowed level draining but didn't allow for restorations to be made available. ... The rules aren't broken, just the DM's ability to deal with the problem is lacking. The problem is with the PC's, not the system.

I can't speak for anyone else, TB, but my objection to level drain isn't mechanical--it's conceptual. I hate the notion of level drain, just like I hate the notion of spending XP on magic items.

Levels are not life-force. They're a measure of how much a character knows. The only way I can accept level loss is if it comes with amnesia. Other than that, I just don't like it as a concept.

That's why I want to see it gotten rid of, not because I don't know how to deal with it in-game.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

If Level Draining was replaced with Constitution damage... How much damage should it cause? I'm thinking 1d4 CON damage per level it would have normally drained.

Thoughts/Comments?

 

[mmadsen]

I long ago decided to replace negative levels with -2 to all attributes -- effectively -1 to anything the character might do -- treated like a disease, so the character might get better, or he might get worse. Think Frodo and the Nazgul blade.