NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9722713" data-attributes="member: 6877472">It really, really depends.  There are lots of ways to gain levels from magic items- the Deck of Many Things, The Book of Exalted Deeds, the Manual of Puissant Skill at Arms, etc. etc..  One of my earliest memories of AD&D was a discussion about whether or not the gems and money produced by a Robe of Many Pockets counted as "treasure" for xp purposes.The DM made what I felt was a fair ruling- he admitted that the argument for why such things would count was valid in his opinion, but since it was theoretically possible to craft a Robe at some point and gain xp for that, allowing a caster to "double dip" by then cashing in said Robe's randomly generated treasure seemed against the spirit of the system.This cut off several similar debates regarding the Bag of Beans and being pelted by gems from a Wand of Wonder.Tricks and Traps that did strange things to characters were discussed in the DMG- and an infamous example of such things can be found in the Tomb of Horrors (I've seen more than one character have their gender and alignment inverted over the years!).But despite all of this, it did seem that ways to lose levels were more common overall.  If that was the intent I'll never know- the DMG didn't give much guidance, and ways to avoid such things were few and far between.People like to say "well that's what you get for fighting certain enemies" but sometimes you literally have no choice.  It was in The Ruins of Undermountain that my Cleric died despite taking every precaution in the book.  We'd come upon a door- the Thief didn't detect a trap, but did hear rustling noises on the other side.We waited a bit, and nothing came out, even when we made some noise.  I suggested casting Augury- and, of course, got "weal and woe", which could mean anything, really.  I had the most hit points (being a little higher level than the other characters), so I borrowed our Fighter's shield +1 and opened the door.Immediately we were swarmed by "wraith spiders"- undead spiders each armed with a level drain. We didn't stand a chance.  Even if I'd had Negative Energy Protection going, that only guards against one level drain, so that was that.(Sure, you could argue I died for opening a door knowing that there could be danger on the other side, but with that mindset, you'd never leave your house in a D&D world, let alone go on an adventure!).After that, my favorite magic item became the Scarab of Protection, and I was incredibly happy any time I could get my grubby paws on one (such items are amazing for multiple reasons, but among them was the fact that they could negate up to 12 lost levels due to drain before being destroyed)!</blockquote>

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