Restoration and energy drain

[Gwain]

I was just with a group where one player got fifteen levels drained because the undead he was fighting kept casting energy drain at every single round of combat. I'm going to make the suggestion that undead that can cast energy drain have their ability to cast it halved or decreased. Or restoration be given to mobile clerics in the healing list. It might also do to have restoration return multiple levels at higher skills in the spell.

[Aldren]

As someone who recently suffered 18 negative levels during -one- fight recently, while there were maybe 5 people online (none of whom could be of use to me in restoring said levels), I wholeheartedly support this idea. Frankly, I find it a joke that a vampire can drain 3 of my levels (three separate castings/uses of it) in the time it takes me to cast one spell during the same fight.

Thumbs up.

[Kaaurk]

This is the main reason I try to avoid Undead. I agree completely with this idea!

[Tyeslan]

I wish I could like posts. This is definitely agreed upon. I suffered a 9 level drain at one point, and thankfully could restore most of it myself, but I think mob clerics need to be given this with the most recent happenings of energy drain being significantly increased. I don't really want to have to avoid undead, but right now spam casted energy drain makes it happen.

[Nylo]

The reason many undead get this ability is because in tabletop, at least, it's easily countered with death ward, which blocks level drain. If that's not the case here, then I submit that we should instead fix death ward.

Edit: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/d/death-ward

The subject is immune to energy drain and any negative energy effects, including channeled negative energy.

On a side note, this should also block cause and harm spells - if we're testing it anyways, those should be tested as well.

[Algon]

I don't think its a problem with death ward, or even that the undead have the ability to energy drain. The problem is that they have the ability to energy drain far too much. Could the fight_prog not be set to cast this at a random interval? Say something small like 15% of the time instead of every single round?

[Sithiel]

I would really like to see te ability to restore lost levels given to mob healers. The cost could be high, that does not really matter. But it's quite frustrating to grind back all those lost levels, without no way to get them back. I had this incident where I lost four levels in a single round. At the moment there were only me and one orc logged on. Nothing much I could do... It's especially frustarting on these kinds of situations when you know you're going to lose the levels permanently without any other option.

[Casamir]

While I think things like restoration, revive, and even break enchantment should be on mob healers, I think these should be limited to fewer mobs and scattered across the realms. Furthermore, I would not mind seeing things like remove curse, cure disease, neutralize poison, and even raise dead similarly limited. It's not that it should be super rare, I just never liked the one-stop shopping mentality for npc healers, as we avoid it in other things like guilds. I think it negates too much of the gravity with these kinds of effects to have a panacea on every street corner. I believe one-stop healers only make sense for lower level characters in starter zones or those stuck in smaller/isolated zones.

[Benorf]

As the person that lost the 15 levels, I also am for this.

However, I wonder why Restoration, Greater isn't a spell? In the phb, it's a 7th level spell that restores ALL negative levels. It also has a cast time of one week/caster level. Maybe that's the route to go? As far as cleric spells go, it is not prohibited by any diety.

[Azgar]

I recently was level draied from level 33 to level 5, in 1 fight, less than about a min or so in duration.... Thankfully i was able to be restored to level 27. But thats still 6 levels down that have to be regained which can be quite a burden. Speaking of restore, is there a reason that it does not restore you back to the original level, in my case there was still plenty of time left, but i could not be restored past 27.

I am all for undead not being able to energy drain like its going out of style.

[Anguin]

I am against adding Restoration to NPC healers - at least across the board. A few select healers that could do this is more palatable, but I still do not like it.

I would prefer to see Energy Drain properly balanced. As far as I can tell (by checking the d20 SRD), only vampires, wights and spectres should have this as an inherent ability. They are limited to using it once per round. Unlike the 9th level spell, their ability is limited to draining a maximum of two levels. Even with the 2/5 FK conversion, this seems reasonable to me. I have not run across any wights where there was not plenty of warning that it was an undead-infested zone. Not that I can recall, at least.

I'd prefer to have undead remain a frightening foe, and I think the too-easy availability of Restoration would diminish that.

[Tamryn]

The problem with "once per round" is that fights on FK tend to have a lot more rounds than in tabletop, because everyone has more hp.

[Enig]

The problem with "once per round" is that fights on FK tend to have a lot more rounds than in tabletop, because everyone has more hp.

Not to mention the inability to at any point not be in melee range. Anyways, these mobs work by draining one level per attack in a process which ignores saving throws. The only defense that I'm aware of is to avoid them or to use death ward. (Note: saving throws are being rolled, the outcome is simply being ignored.)

Allowing fortitude saves to work would go a long way towards balancing these out.

[Anguin]

Hmm. The Fortitude save would remove negative levels after the fight is done... and it is often quite low (DC 15). I can see how it would be problematic to accurately include that in FK...

I think a Fortitude save might be appropriate, if we can't properly reflect d20 mechanics. Scaled to the undead's level, instead of a flat 15.

[Hrosskell]

Considering as how the attack has no save against it other than a dodge, I don't see the low save afterwards as a bad thing. It'd apply the negative levels for a certain amount of time then they'd go away on save or properly drain on fail. That entire time would definitely be a bummer without restoration, but it's an added oomph over flat HP damage.

[Rhangalas]

Considering as how the attack has no save against it other than a dodge, I don't see the low save afterwards as a bad thing.

Agreed. I think the problem lies with broken saves across the board. I assume it has something to do with the new DR system or the code just doesn't allow for multiple saves per single affect.

[Llanthyr]

The root problem is the same for almost all mobs.

1. They don't have similar skill limitations to PCs. A level 50 PC can probably cast 5 energy drains at most - but no one in their right mind really memorises 5 energy drains?
2. They don't operate on similar skill competencies to PCs. A normal PC has an average skill level of apprentice for most skills/spells. Most mobs operate on a GM level.
3. They don't get much of a concentration check. This ties in with #2 and with their higher mob HP and GMed concentration skill level, you hardly can interrupt their spell casting.
4. If this is part of a mob special attack, it does not negate their normal attacks while they do this special attack. You take the brunt of the spell plus the full round of attacks.

[Baeus]

How does energy drain work here? Can all the drained levels be returned with restoration? If you log while drained can the levels be returned to you at a later date via restoration or are they permanently gone at that point?

[Raona]

Tamryn's point was spot-on, here. Everything was coded canon but combat goes on for many more rounds in FK than in tabletop. So the patch I've put in is to have undead only succeed 10% of the time with their drain attacks.

Restoration remains canon, and restores one level at a time. You can log out and not suffer an extra penalty for having done so, but the amount of drained experience that can be restored does look to decrease with the passage of time, and rather quickly. Note that even with no time lost before casting restoration, you may not get back to your original level. That is because if you are, say, level 30, and then flee a bunch such that your XP are below the level 30 minimum, you will not drop a level. But if you are then drained and restored, you will only come back up to the XP you had at the time you were drained, and if that wasn't enough for the level you started at, you won't be back at that original level.

One lingering concern: do PCs use level drain spells against other PCs? Should they? Isn't that just nasty-mean?

[Anguin]

I have no personal experience with these spells in PvP. But, I do not think there's a problem. They drain levels, but we have more levels than 3.5 does. PCs are limited by what they can memorize, unlike some undead. I think it's fine.