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In the time it took me to cast a cure critical, I lost a level to a wraith. I know wraiths are notorious for level draining, but isn't there an echo or something to accompany that, or is it a normal means of attack for them now? It just really struck me as odd.


You begin to chant.
A greater wraith's punch brutally pulverizes your right arm.
Your slash tears a gaping wound into a greater wraith's left arm.
a greater wraith has several traumatic wounds.
You lost your concentration.
Cirei's slash tears open a greater wraith's abdomen.
With a sickening sound Cirei's slash violently shreds a greater wraith's chest.
Cirei's slash tears open a greater wraith's abdomen.
Cirei's slash tears a gaping wound into a greater wraith's left leg.
You begin to chant.
A greater wraith's punch violently beats your chest.
You have just lost a level!
Cirei's slash minces a greater wraith's head.
Your slash tears a gaping wound into a greater wraith's head.
a greater wraith is slowly bleeding to death.
You lost your concentration.

I'm mostly just curious!

You used to see the wraith or lich cast a spell to take away a level, I've never seen it on a wraith though. It might be silent casting or still spell in action? Or it could be a innate ability?

I took a quick look at canon sources to see how/why wraiths and liches might cause level loss, but it looks like there's nothing in there to explain it. Actually, it looks like attacks by wraiths do constitution drain instead of damage or level loss (and scary amounts of it, too!).

Having encountered both wraiths and liches in game, I know that they used to perform their level loss attacks by casting Enervation. In the case of liches, I assume this is because they are, pretty much as a rule, spellcasters. For wraiths, I figured their level draining through Enervation was just supposed to represent them draining the life from their victims. However, since they were casting a spell to do it, casting Silence on them always put a stop to it.

I'm betting Gwain's got the right idea here. They're probably still casting the spell, but they're doing it Silent and Still to make it more like an innate ability. If that's the case, then it works pretty nicely, but it might be nice to get some kind of echo to let players know why they just lost a level.

I could reproduce this with
(13909) A threatening wraith slowly floats towards you.
who has
>fight_prog 2
mpcast 'enervation'

When they do so, and you don't save, sure enough, all you get is the message you lost a level.

The right fix is a bit trickier! Do we want, in general, targets to get the normal spell hit echoes when a beastie employs a spell-like ability and connects? I'm guessing not...and if not, what to do? Add something to each fight_prog, like
smote attempts to drain your life force!
perhaps?

Also, have race file changes made programs such as these obsolete, if the race is set correctly? This particular one is set to race human, for example. Maybe we just need to find and fix old monsters that now have appropriate and working race files (yay race file team!)?

I don't pretend to know the real details here, but from what I was explained, the issue is because it is an mprog as opposed to a normal cast.

During a normal cast, when you don't save you are affected by the loss and it can be fixed with a restoration spell.
During the mprog version, you are not affected by the spell and your level drain is automatically permanent.

Why can't they just silent spell cast?

Actually, if you look in the MP Commands lesson, you will see that mpcast should still produce echoes and only means that there is no chance of the caster failing, mpaffect does not have echoes with it; neither means that the effect of the spell is any different. Mobiles with programs are actually infuriatingly ineffective at casting sometimes.

The simple answer in this case, it appears, is to add a smote or mpecho in order to ensure that the effect is advertised.

In general, Raona, this may hint at the need for either a fix on mpcast or an update on the lesson.

Does the "no chance at failing" also apply to beating PC saves? I've never saved against that.

I lost a few levels yesterday because of energy drain, as far as I can tell it produces around three echoes, the first was the casting, the second the level loss and the third the reaction.

No it only means that there is no chance of caster failure; you resist as normal.

D20 says there is no save against enervation. Our code checks against fortitude, but even if you make the save, you still lose the experience; it might have been different in the past.

If MPCAST should be providing echoes, it looks like we do have a hard code bug: it is not doing so. That's why you don't get any indication of why you lost a level, or that you are losing experience.

One important question before I Bugzilla this: is it possible the change to silent MPCAST was intentional? I seem to recall some discussion around it at some point in the not too distant past, and I want to be sure I don't ask Mask to undo something we asked him to do. Any reason one would want it to be silent, given MPAFFECT exists?

I don't recall that and I cannot find anything on the forums about it. Anyone remember that?

Yes.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/wight.htm

Enervation is not Level Drain supernatural ability. Likely, it was changed so that when it was cast it would have a save. But I've never seen it fail. I originally reported it here: viewtopic.php?f=51&t=14024

Also, I'm not sure why Wraiths drain levels in FK. They are only supposed to be able to do ability (constitution) drain.

No. Anything about MPCAST being changed so that it is silent.

Ok, I got a chance to talk with Mask today, and it is his understanding that MPCAST should be silent, no echoes, and that it is up to area coders to put in echoes that indicate an attack is being made.

So unless he's mis-remembering, the right fix here is to patch up the problematic NPCs. The right way to do it, though, I think, is to code them as the correct race, which they currently are not. I thought the race files had been buffed up to make undead like these have the correct attacks, but the wight race file includes only a small hit point drain, if I read it right. Perhaps that was done because all the wights already in-game had the MPCASTS? Or you just can't put code the right attacks in a race file...not sure, above my pay grade.

The issue about not getting to save against one spell or another I'm leaving be for now - as Selveem said, there's already a ticket on that.

Anyone know if the race file can be modified to inflict the right level drain damage (with a save)?

There are a LOT of undead in the game, a few are coded as their specific race, most are race undead.