D&D 5E Wights and wraiths

[GameDoc]

Here's an idea I've been experimenting with for different types of attacks (like ED)

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That's an interesting idea. It gives players a sense of when it may be time to retreat before anyone actually dies. Something I've seen my players increasingly do over the years is abandon retreat as a tactic. They don't think of it until it becomes apparent a TPK is eminent. I think real adventurers, especially seasoned ones, would have some sense after a few rounds that they are in over their heads and decide discretion is the better part of valor.

 

[Zaukrie]

No to xp, lots of groups do not even use xp at all.

 

[The Shadow]

I really wouldn't want XP to be involved at all. Sure, losing actual character levels is one of the things players will really sit up and take notice, but I don't like the degree of metagame involved in rationalizing it. Experience is experience. The only way to lose it should be some kind of weird effect that removes the brain's memories.

Agreed. Energy Drain should not involve xp at all. Scary as it is, it just doesn't make sense!

My favorite solution so far has been the PF update to 3.5's energy drain. Apply negative levels, each of which imposes a -1 on lots of rolls. Roll a Fort save the next day to try to recover it. If you fail, that negative level sticks around.
In D&D Next, I could easily see rolling a Fort save each day to recover a negative level until eventually successful. The one major drawback is the relative tediousness of rolling a bunch of Fort saves if saddled with 5 or more negative levels.

Heh heh heh. We want ED to be scary and long-lasting, right? And we don't want to roll lots of dice. So don't! Kill two birds with one stone.

If you have 5 or more negative levels, you can only recover one at a time. Roll one die per day, not 5.

Hautamaki: Your idea intrigues me greatly and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. Mind sharing that wound table of yours?

 

[Zaukrie]

I would be good with a lot of minus 1 type stuff. I would do energy drain like 4e disease tracks. Multiple saves and or magic to heal.

 

[Magil]

Energy drain should need a *lot* more to fix than a simple long rest and some treatment; and if you don't want a magical solution the other way to fix it is to get out and adventure up all the XP you just lost.

And yes, energy drain should take away levels. Entire levels. Not just bits of levels, or things gained from levels, but whole levels as measured by XP.

Lan-"coming on Samhain, this is a fine topic"-efan

I feel like I can make energy drain scary without doing something as tedious and not-fun as level draining. I don't like taking XP/levels away from players as a mechanic--it requires tedious tracking (I don't even track XP anymore these days, my players level up when I say they do, and I want them to all stay at the same level), and it screws with potential gameplay balance too much. 4E wights that drained healing surges were plenty scary for the party I DM for, at least according to them.

I have two points of contention with this. The first is that energy drain has to be permanent or it isn't energy drain. Energy drain is an effect that consumes part of your spirit. That part never comes back.

The second is that magic, by definition, breaks the rules of reality. Thus, there have to be things that only magic can do. In this case, it's restoring the part of your spirit that was consumed.

Now, it sounds to me like you're the kind of player who isn't too concerned with verisimilitude. You clearly like the idea of being brought to full health after a long rest. I presume you prefer to be doing big things, getting in to grand fights, and generally doing the high power hero stuff. That's cool. The game needs to support that. But energy drain is not intended for that style of play, and the default rules should reflect that.

You're making a lot of assumptions about me with one simple statement, don't you think? I generally think that if you destroy the creature that did the draining, it should be possible to recover whatever is lost without resorting to magic. I don't mind magic bending the rules of reality, but about the only time I'm okay with it being necessary to allow a character to get back to full power would be when a character dies.

This reliance on magical healing to recover from so many debilitating afflictions is something I never want to see in the game again, at least not in the default rules. At most, energy drain should be treated like a disease--there's no reason your "spirit" can't replenish itself, given time and some rest. If the creature needs to be destroyed first, that's fine too. It makes for a good story. What doesn't make for a good story is "well Bob got drained by a lucky attack roll, I guess we need to go hire a cleric to fix him."

 

[billd91]

Heh heh heh. We want ED to be scary and long-lasting, right? And we don't want to roll lots of dice. So don't! Kill two birds with one stone.

If you have 5 or more negative levels, you can only recover one at a time. Roll one die per day, not 5.

I could see one a day working - rather like stat damage recovery in 3e. I'd be tempted to make it automatic rather than based on a Fort save though. A nasty energy draining encounter could take days to recover from, but assuming you didn't get killed, you would recover.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Doesn't that sort of imply that there should be an 'elder brother' of skeletons as well? Or are skeletons simply zombies whose flesh has rotted away?

I had thought about that, but came to the conclusion that skeletons don't really seem "spawnable" (via killing and then changing a living being). For one... you'd need some way to completely strip the flesh off the dead body, which doesn't seem all that easy and necessary. And two, skeletons have always been the backbone (pun intended) of the Necromancer's "raised" army. So skeletons aren't spawned, they're animated. Which is why I kept them out of the big/little brother pairings on my list. Keep them separate as your basic animated undead. On the same basis I would have kept zombies outside of the "spawning" pool too (as they are also traditionally created via necromantic animation rather than spawning)... but it does make a bit of sense that perhaps a wight has the same magical ability to "raise" a corpse like a necromancer could.

That being said... to answer your question on what would be the "elder brother" of the skeleton... of the most universal undead creatures in the game it would probably be the Death Knight or Skeletal Warrior. But in both cases, I don't believe either one would create skeletons from the people they just killed.

Spectres... I kind of see GameDoc's point... Just how many ways can evil people come back, after all?

Though if we have to keep them all, I'd say the difference between a wraith and a spectre is that a spectre is basically a malevolent ghost with specific goals, while a wraith is something that hardly has any vestige of humanity left - it hungers for life force and not much else.

Which kind of implies that spectres shouldn't have Energy Drain any more. Instead they should have beefed-up ghost abilities.

I would also say that spectres just kind of happen spontaneously, while wraiths are deliberately made - they've been *sent* back by fiends to wreak havoc on the Material Plane. Souls that have been tortured and twisted until they seek revenge on all living things.

Both James Wyatt and Jon Schindehette talked about the incorporeal undead recently in their respective columns. Jon made the good point that 'ghosts' are just wandering spirits who are still tied here for some reason but are not necessarily hostile or aggressive (which is why I didn't include them in the list of "greater undead") Whereas spectres are the more malevolent apparitions, and he describes them as perhaps people who were killed violently due to some treachery, and they remain here looking for vengeance against those who betrayed them (while trying to eradicate all other life while doing so).

Jon postulated that wraiths were perhaps bound here because of some geas, curse or duty that was left unfulfilled. Whereas James suggested that they might be perhaps wights of such pure concentrated evil that their malign spirit has even outlived its physical body which is why they are now incorporeal.

Speaking personally... I prefer to move Jon's thoughts on the wraith over to the spectre-- especially the "task unfulfilled" part. I see ghosts and spectres as two sides of the same coin... spirits who have not been able to move on to their final rest because of some duty or problem or oath they need to see completed first. Ghosts are the good or neutral people, whereas spectres are the evil ones. I do think they need to come up with a better separation between wraiths and spectres though. Both always seem to tread upon similar ground.

Having a look at my grid above and also reading through the posts by James and Jon on the Wizards website did get me to thinking a bit in terms of how and why these undead come into creation, and how you might separate them in terms of their reason for existence. It does extend my "big brother" metaphor a bit further than these undead have really been described in the past, but perhaps it might help to get them in focus.

First of all... you have three levels of undead "creation"-- the three ways they come into existence. Lowest level are those undead that are either animated or are spawned from more powerful undead. I would include in this level your skeletons, zombies, ghouls and shadows. None of these appear spontaneously on their own... they all get "created" by someone else. They are all mindless or animal-level in intelligence.

Your second level includes those undead which can spontaneously come into existence. Usually because the person in life was so evil or depraved and had such a desire for something that the corpse and spirit became undead on its own. The person didn't plan on it happening... but in some ways his evilness in life punished him by having it happen. This level I would put your ghasts, wights, and wraiths.

Your upper level is reserved for those ultimate evil people who desired and strove to become undead... because they still had some earthly tie that made them want to spend the rest of their unlife here, rather than move on. They went about the processes necessary to assure themselves eternal unlife-- they made themselves undead. This would be your spectre, vampire, mummy, and lich.

So you have these three tiers of how they became undead... and I do think you could even then split them up vertically by what their reasoning is for being undead. This way you make sure they all have different reasons for their existence in the game. Some of these ideas has been offered by James and Jon, and I'm just riffing on them.

The first group James put together and I think makes a lot of sense: the ghoul, ghast, and vampire. All three of these have an insatiable hunger or thirst-- a need for something that is so strong that they cannot rest. For ghouls it is as simple as the need to consume living flesh, whereas the vampire might have a longing for a person or an object. They don't have it and they will not rest until they do.

The second group are the three that are compelled by a duty... something they need or are compelled to do. These would be your zombies, wights, and mummies. Walking corpses who are often guardians-- found amongst tombs protecting the stuff within. These creatures will not rest because they have to do this task.

The third group is the incorporeal group... and I've always seen them as the ones whose spirits were ripped from their bodies due to such overwhelming evil-- either a horrible, violent, treacherous death, or a need for vengeance that is so strong that the spirit remains even when the body dies. Your shadows, wraiths, and spectres. They truly are the spirits of vengeance... wreaking havoc among the living in order to get back at those who wronged them.

Finally, there's the fourth group... which even I am having a hard time really even considering as an actual group per se. It's only because they are all skeletal that I do so... which is your skeleton, death knight, and lich. Now I know they don't really belong together (except for the fact that they are all skeletal) because the skeleton and death knight have traditionally been animated warriors, whereas the lich is the ultimate evil wizard. So while the skeleton and death knight could be paired up-- subservient warriors and champions for demon lords, archdevils, or evil gods... the liches are in a class by themselves. But just because it makes the chart look nice, I'll include them.

Thus the pretty grid of undeath looks like this:

              animated/  spontaneously    self
              spawned       created      created

war:          skeleton   death knight    lich

duty:         zombie        wight        mummy

hunger:       ghoul         ghast        vampire

vengeance:    shadow       wraith        spectre

Does this really mean anything? Nope. But it kept me busy for about an hour coming up with all of this, so it was time well spent for me. Feel free to tell me how full of crap I am for it.

 

[Hautamaki]

Agreed. Energy Drain should not involve xp at all. Scary as it is, it just doesn't make sense!



Heh heh heh. We want ED to be scary and long-lasting, right? And we don't want to roll lots of dice. So don't! Kill two birds with one stone.

If you have 5 or more negative levels, you can only recover one at a time. Roll one die per day, not 5.

Hautamaki: Your idea intrigues me greatly and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. Mind sharing that wound table of yours?

My pleasure, I'm flattered!

It's super simple really: For a basic physical attack (read: all attacks except those with specific noted exceptions) roll a 2d6 if the attack reduces the character to 0 or fewer HP. Also, all attacks that reduce a character to below 0 force the character to take a fort save to avoid being Stunned (knocked prone and lose all actions that turn in other words)

2-3--head wound: characters without helmets take double damage from this hit; all characters are automatically stunned, and get a -2 to all perception type checks until restored to positive HP.
4--primary arm disabled: character loses the use of his primary arm until restored to positive HP.
5--secondary arm disabled: character loses the use of his secondary arm until restored to positive HP.
(in addition to the obvious effects of losing the use of an arm, characters also have their Strength score cut in half for Strength based skills/grappling/etc)
6--leg disabled: character loses the full use of one of his legs, moves at half speed, and has his strength score cut in half until restored to positive HP.
7--arterial wound: character loses 1 hp/level to bloodloss until restored to positive HP.
8-12--lucky break! No serious wound, but character may still be stunned.

 

[Li Shenron]

My favorite solution so far has been the PF update to 3.5's energy drain. Apply negative levels, each of which imposes a -1 on lots of rolls. Roll a Fort save the next day to try to recover it. If you fail, that negative level sticks around.
In D&D Next, I could easily see rolling a Fort save each day to recover a negative level until eventually successful. The one major drawback is the relative tediousness of rolling a bunch of Fort saves if saddled with 5 or more negative levels.

In one of our previous campaigns we used a similar idea, starting from the 3.0 energy drain and replacing level loss with "sticky" negative levels, but you didn't get to retry every day so there was no "eventually successful". Once you fail the save after 24 hours, the negative levels were permanent until dispelled with a proper Restoration.

We thought it was a cool house rule that didn't require any change to the character sheet, but IMHO it had 2 problems: first, if you use monsters with energy drain too frequently, it's still too deadly, so it's a good house rule only for a campaign where energy draining monsters aren't too frequent; second, once your party Cleric hits level 7 and has Restoration available, it just becomes a moot point (although we had other house rules that didn't grant clerics automatic knowledge of all clerical spells, so for us it was a strategic choice to learn Restoration or not).

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Where in the name does "energy drain" say permanent? All the name says is that energy flows out of something, there is an implicit idea that what ever is drained has to go somewhere, but nothing to say that it can not be recovered from or is permanent. The type of energy drained isn't even stated.

[...]

The version you seem to be espousing as the "One True Way" is one of the versions which inflicts damage that is either permanent or recovered from in a non-standard or easy way. Not everyone agrees with you.

My definition isn't entirely based on the name, but on D&D history. There are thirty years of energy drain being a permanent weakening of a character. It's part of the story and setting.

Can there be a non-permanent option or similar but non-permanent ability? Certainly. Many groups would prefer to use those. But the default option should reflect the game's history.

Check your definition.

Spellcasting in D&D is magic as a supernatural force. You could argue that it's a natural force in the context of the setting, but it still does things that are otherwise impossible. Regardless, we're arguing semantics. My real point is that energy drain, like amputation or death, is permanent. That is, unless you consider magic, in which case anything can be potentially reversed. In this case, the traditional method is with the restoration spell.

Which I guess is something we might have to opt into if we like it. I think there's probably room for that in the game, but I don't think the default baseline could handle it -- the default baseline needs to have a "everything comes back" mechanic, if only to make it easy for newbies and casual players to play it without having to track fiddly bits over the long term.

I honestly don't think that the default baseline has to be this. D&D went three decades without this as the baseline. Now, I don't believe that the default options need to be the harshest, but neither should they be the most forgiving. The default mechanics should reasonably express the in-world effects they describe. You can't do that and not have permanent or long lasting effects.

You're making a lot of assumptions about me with one simple statement, don't you think? I generally think that if you destroy the creature that did the draining, it should be possible to recover whatever is lost without resorting to magic. I don't mind magic bending the rules of reality, but about the only time I'm okay with it being necessary to allow a character to get back to full power would be when a character dies.

This reliance on magical healing to recover from so many debilitating afflictions is something I never want to see in the game again, at least not in the default rules. At most, energy drain should be treated like a disease--there's no reason your "spirit" can't replenish itself, given time and some rest. If the creature needs to be destroyed first, that's fine too. It makes for a good story. What doesn't make for a good story is "well Bob got drained by a lucky attack roll, I guess we need to go hire a cleric to fix him."

You're right. I made assumptions. I'm trying to understand why you would have a problem with this. The fact that some debilitating conditions would be permanent makes sense, as does the idea that magic might be able to restore those conditions.

To some extent, I understand that it's dull to have the players just run off to hire a cleric, but that's more of a problem with the availability of consequence free divine magic, a problem that already has wide-reaching detrimental effects on the setting.

Spirit healing itself quickly doesn't fit well with human culture. Our myths, stories, and even day to day metaphors are filled with examples of spiritual wounds that don't heal easily if at all. At our most optimistic, the phrase is "time heals all wounds," and we're not referring to an extended rest.

All of that said, your idea of having to kill the monster has merit, depending on the monster. Some monsters should consume drained energy for temporary power, in which case killing the monster to get it back doesn't really make sense. Others, though, might hold the energy and gain permanent power. In these cases, it makes absolute sense that killing the monster could free the energy.


* * *

Overall, what I'm saying is that a permanent form of energy drain belongs in the default assumptions of the setting for a variety of reasons, and thus should be the default rule.

I also believe that optional recovery mechanics should be presented. One of those options is to have the effects go away after a long rest. It might be cool for there to be rules for spiritual recovery through revenge, or healing through meditation and prayer.