Random Energy Drain thought

Nearly a decade ago (wow!) I suggested an alternate way to handle undead's energy drain (and swords of life stealing etc.) would be to let the PCs keep their level, and all the spells/day, chances to hit, saves, skills that come with it. They just lose the hit die and associated hit points that go with it.

I never did implement that idea.

Now, I've got another idea that is also worth considering. Energy drain doesn't sap levels, but it does sap XP. So a 6th level Fighter that is energy drained drops from however much XP they had to 24,000xp (half way from 5th to 6th) but keeps the hit points, fighting ability, and saves of a 6th level character. It just takes them a lot longer to level up to 7th. Getting level drained again would drop them to 12,000xp, halfway between 4th and 5th. And if they get down to halfway between 1st and 2nd and get energy drained again, they die and rise the next night as undead themselves.

The penalty is pretty big, but retaining all the level abilities would allow them to keep adventuring with their companions. Also, with my rule of "you keep your level when you die and roll up a new PC" it would work better.

Inspiration from an unusual source

This was spammed in my comments five times. It would actually make a good hook for a modern supernatural/horror/investigation type RPG scenario. (Actual email address changed so they don't still benefit from their spam.)

Are you tired of being human, having talented brain turning to a vampire in a good posture in ten minutes, Do you want to have power and influence over others, To be charming and desirable, To have wealth, health, without delaying in a good human posture and becoming an immortal? If yes, these your chance. It's a world of vampire where life get easier,We have made so many persons vampires and have turned them rich, You will assured long life and prosperity, You shall be made to be very sensitive to mental alertness, Stronger and also very fast, You will not be restricted to walking at night only even at the very middle of broad day light you will be made to walk, This is an opportunity to have the human vampire virus to perform in a good posture. If you are interested contact us on Vampirelord666@emailaddress.com

6/13/2019 update
And another vampire wannabe spammed my comments, including this post!  These vampires have better grammar, but worse posture. Select your vampire plan carefully.

Vampires is not at all like in the movies or books. Sure, I understand. You are young you have the whole world open to you. You can be anything that you choose if you apply yourself and try hard to work toward that goal. But being a Vampire is not what it seems like. It’s a life full of good, and amazing things. We are as human as you are.. It’s not what you are that counts, But how you choose to be. Do you want a life full of interesting things? Do you want to have power and influence over others? To be charming and desirable? To have wealth, health, and longevity? contact the Vampires Lord on his Email: Richvampirekindom@emailaddress.com

Player Expectations of Character Death and Disability

Just finished another session of my West Marches game. It was fun. We had a new player who has played a few RPGs before but never D&D. He rolled up a Human Fighter with 18 Strength and a halberd and off we went.

In the previous session, the party found a dungeon under a ruined temple, and explored part of it. They went back there. Last time, they had the 5th level Thief and Magic-User veterans, plus four brand-spanking new 1st level characters: Half-Elf Druid, Halfling Ranger, Human Fighter, and Dragonborn Cleric.

[Yes, I have house ruled Basic D&D to have race and class instead of race-as-class. And Dragonborn and Changelings (like Tieflings, but could be Infernal, Celestial or Fey ancestry) both because my son really likes Dragonborn and to make conversion easier since there were 3 Tieflings in the 5E version of West Marches. With race-and-class and race-as-class, I'm constantly a pendulum, liking one or other the other. Right now I'm on race-and-class, but starting to feel (again) that dedicated classes for demi-humans are better...]

The mother/daughter playing the Fighter and Cleric decided not to come anymore, but we had our new guy with a Fighter. But, this time, the Fairy Princess (Changeling Magic-User) player didn't come. And the dungeon they were in is really challenging. It's not designed for a 1st level party unless they are VERY clever. 2nd to 4th would be a better fit. But the treasures are right for that level range so...

Long story short, a wight killed the new Fighter in one hit, and the next round level drained the 5th level Thief down to a 4th level thief before they managed to kill it. The Fighter player was OK with that, actually. Like I say, he's played a few other RPGs before, and he'd just rolled the character up and wasn't attached. He rolled up another Fighter (with only 14 Str) and got back in the game.

Our Gnome Thief player (a really good friend outside of the game) had gotten up to 5th level in 5E before the conversion. And seeing all that XP drained, and taking the hit to HP, thief skills, and chances to hit was a shock to him. He got over it fairly quickly though, and after the session he was joking around about it. Not happy, of course, but able to take it in stride.

The player of the Druid, though, had this look on his face of controlling his anger during this encounter. He didn't say anything, but I could tell he was pissed that I'd throw something as dangerous as a wight into a low level dungeon. And later, in a room with a dozen skeletons, his druid died in the melee. I think he was probably considering if he should stay or quit the game. It took him a while before he accepted a new character sheet and started rolling a new PC.

I did say that he could have the XP earned from this adventure. It seemed only fair to me, as before his Druid died, he was having some good rolls and figuring out some of the puzzles and traps for the party. He accepted that, and in the end rolled up a new PC, but since we were near the end of our play time he didn't finish before we wrapped up the session.

He said he'll be on vacation during our next session, but will come back in May.

So, player expectations. The Druid player is used to playing 5E and Pathfinder. He's used to "tough but fair" encounter/adventure design. He's used to characters with lots of bells and whistles that help them manage encounters. And he doesn't have that now. Like I say, he's playing well and smartly. He just got unlucky (large room with skeletons laid out in a pattern on the floor, trying to go to the next room without the proper McGuffin animates them, so the skeletons could attack the whole party).

The Thief player has, like I mentioned, been playing since I was using 5E. His previous character was zapped away to imprisonment by the Deck of Many Things (and could still be rescued). Energy drain with no save was a bit of a shock to him though. In 5E, it's a temporary setback (3E/PF as well, and I don't remember if it was even a thing in 4E).

I'm thinking I should have been a bit more up front about what it would mean to switch to old school D&D with the players. I'm sure I mentioned that it's deadlier, but probably didn't impress just how deadly it can be. Death at 0hp. Lots of save or die effects, including most poisons. Ruthless energy drain rules.

Of course, the players need to pony up some responsibility as well. They could have run from the wight after the Fighter was drained. They could have mentioned taking defensive positions in the skeleton room (bothering the remains was also a trigger to animating them, but they could have done that with the squishy PCs out in the hall). Part of it was just bad luck. They didn't have a Cleric to Turn the undead, and the skeletons and the wight had initiative on the party in the first round both times. But the losses could have been better mitigated by clever play.

Well, everyone still seems keen to play, despite the setbacks. And if they do keep with it, the treasure they could collect will make it worth their while. We may find out in two weeks or so.

Uptown Ghoul

A week ago, we played another session of Justin's Vaults of Ur campaign.

Thidrek and Noctis having penetrated the Nightzone only to find stiff resistance from the undead army, and losing most of our men at arms, in our last session, we gathered together a much larger force.

Thidrek hired a platoon of twenty Orc Magi heavy foot, each immune to ghoul paralysis and packing a magic missile spell, and their third level captain.

The Venerable Carolus returned to action!  Maya had suffered a mind-body swap curse in some FLAILSNAILS adventure, so Alexei pulled out another Fighter/Cleric/Magic-User Elf from his files, and now I've forgotten his name...Earilion or something Tolkien-ish like that.  Sorry!

Tark, the NPC Orc Magi ghoul hunter we met last session, stuck with us.

We penetrated to the heart of the Nightzone, and found the old fortress where some previous adventurers (Karl, Burg/Noctis, and a few others) had failed to recover a magical amulet.  Night was flowing up from the fortress through the ground.  After fending off a returning ghoul patrol, we went underground.

That's when we found ourselves in tight passages, with large numbers of ghouls and ghoul-centaurs (worm-like bodies, ghoul torsos, and praying mantis claws) all around.

Using a potion of invisibility and Alexei's elf's elven cloak, we found the leaders, Helemor the Awakened and a ghoul shaman.  In a large knock-down-drag-out fight, Thidrek was paralyzed and lost his sleestak horn, Noctis nearly died due to Helemor's ministrations, and Karl's spellcasting saved the day.

Helemor fled, the ghouls were destroyed, and we've still got about 1/3 of our troops. 

We're playing a bit of exploration PbP on Facebook, so things are continuing...

Slaughter in the Night Zone

Last Saturday night, Justin, Jeremy and myself cranked up the volume to 11 and ran the Vaults of Ur campaign again.  Been quite a while.

We started out doing a bit of down-time role playing by post, with Thidrek and Noctis following up on some stuff they found while they were away from Fort Low.  When we fought the eagle-shark, on the monument it used for a nest, there was a graven image of a magical flying cauldron and some humans flying around in it fighting orcs.  We'd seen a similar one in the room of the Hive's Great Minds.  We went there to see what they knew about it (not much), and they let us test it out. 

The cauldron didn't work for Thidrek, but an Orc Magi watching us (there is a lot more commerce between Fort Low and the Hive these days, we've cemented the alliance through our past deeds).  Tark was his name, and ghoul-hunting is his game.  We recruited him to come with us, since exploring the Night Zone was the plan of action for the night.  Tark, being skilled in magic, was able to pilot the cauldron.  The Great Minds of course took it back for analysis.

We hired a bunch of men-at-arms, ten light foot and ten archers.  Forager, our main ally in the Hive, also lent us five of his men.  Our mission was to see what's going on in the Night Zone, as I mentioned above.  The Night Zone is an area of perpetual darkness, where ghouls and an army of skeletons/zombies are battling.  This area was created when one of our adventures failed (the one where most of us used new 1st level characters, and explored an old Spiked Circle outpost full of octo-apes in order to find a lost amulet, and apparently we let something out, or the amulet allowed it to come out, and, well, Night Zone). 

It wasn't long after we entered the Night Zone that we heard the approach of many booted feet.  We arranged our force into an ambush position, and waited.  An undead army of skeletons and zombies approached.  They sensed us, and took a defensive posture.  After a few yelled attempts at parlay (we wondered if we could get them to help us fight ghouls, they wanted our bodies to swell their ranks, we reached an impasse), battle began. 

Our archers proved fairly useless, the skeletal archers less so.  The footmen on Thidrek's side were mown down fairly quickly by zombies, but luckily Thidrek had taken his potion of speed, and was doing Matrix-style bullet-time moves to keep things interesting.  On Noctis and Tark's side, the battle was a little more even, with Noctis staying back in "tactical command" mode and using his bow.

When the undead leader charged with the skeletons when the zombies were about finished off, Thidrek focused on him and took him down in short order thanks to that potion.  Unfortunately, while doing that the last of my archers was torn to pieces by skeletons.  The last of Noctis's light foot went down, leaving the three classed characters and two of Noctis's archers standing when we finished off the skeletons.

By this time, ghouls were approaching stealthily--not so stealthily that we didn't notice them, but enough so that we were unsure of their numbers.  We loaded up some of our dead (to keep them from being animated), and high tailed it back to the Hive.

Next time, hopefully we'll have both more players and more NPCs to help us.  A Cleric or two would be helpful for turning undead.  Maybe then we can penetrate to the heart of the Night Zone and find some way to shut it down.

Adventure Writing

I'm about halfway through writing my first adventure for (the current iteration of) Chanbara.  I'm calling it Ghost Castle Hasegawa.  (Ooo, spooky font effects, it must be good!)

I didn't think any of the published OA adventures really worked for low level PCs, so I'm doing it myself.  Bonus is that I think this would be fairly easy to spruce up for publication (it's fairly sparse since it's just notes for me to run the adventure).

Image from Deviant Art

It feels good to be writing an adventure again.  And I've already noticed a few problems with the rules as written so far.  Hopefully I'll get GCH finished up this week, and be ready to recruit a few brave souls to roll up some ronin and yamabushi to explore this haunted house.

Beast of the Week: Slimer

Somethin' strange in your neighborhood?  Who ya gonna call?  Ghostbusters!

Yep, this week's beast is everyone's favorite green binging ghost, Slimer.

Slimer*
AC: 3 (17)
HD: 3*
Move: Fly 150 (50)
Attacks: 1 pass
Damage: special
No. Appearing: 1d4 (1d4)
Save As: F3
Morale: 8
Treasure Type: Nil
Alignment: Chaotic
XP: 50

Slimers are bulbous green lesser ghosts made mostly of ectoplasm.  They can pass through solid objects easily, but leave a slimy coating of ectoplasm behind when they do so.  While mostly immaterial and only damaged by spells or magic weapons, they can manipulate physical objects to a limited extent (Str 3).  They are constantly hungry, as eating replenishes their ectoplasmic mass.  In combat, they do no damage when they hit, but they coat the target with ectoplasm, imposing a -2 penalty to hit rolls, damage, and saving throws.  Anyone hit by a slimer must Save vs. Death Ray or all consumables and paper products (including rations, potions, scrolls, maps and spellbooks) are ruined by the slime.  The slime can be washed off normally, but requires large amounts of water.  Slimers have all the normal undead immunities, and are Turned as wights.

Beast of the Week: Cauldron Born

A few weeks back, I posted my old stats (from '89 or '90) of my version of Lloyd Alexander's Huntsmen of Annuvin.  Here are the Cauldron Born from the same source, the Prydain Chronicles.  Alexander took the idea of the Cauldron of Rebirth from the Mabinogion (The Tale of Branwen), and like his Arawn, the Cauldron and its contents are much more sinister in Prydain.  Originally I'd made these monsters for a high level plane-hopping adventure that was inspired in equal parts by the Prydain Chronicles and Led Zeppelin's Battle of Evermore.  Never got the adventure completed, but did write up my various Aunnuvin creatures for it.  Anyway, here are the Cauldron Born:

Cauldron Born*
AC: 4 (16)
HD: 5**
Move: 60 (20)
Attacks: 1 weapon
Damage: by weapon +2
No. Appearing: 2d6 (2d6)
Save As: D5
Morale: 12
Treasure Type: Nil
Alignment: Chaotic
XP: 425


Cauldron Born are powerful zombies created by an artifact known as the Black Cauldron.  They can be distinguished from normal zombies before combat by the Chaotic holy symbols that are branded onto their foreheads.  They may only be damaged by spells or magical weapons, and both of these always do minimum damage.  They are immune to sleep, charm and hold spells, and to all spells of third level or lower.  Clerics Turn cauldron born as Specials*.  




*If using a rule set other than BECMI/RC, they Turn as the most powerful undead in that ruleset, whatever that may be.

Beast of the Week: Jack-o-lantern

I mentioned earlier in the week that my son is sorta playing Dragon Strike (or at least playing with the pieces).  When he runs around as the Wizard, he often says that he's changing into a "pumpkin head wizard."  The his wizard punches the monsters.  Also, while it's Chuseok (one of the big annual Korean holidays, sort of Thanksgiving and the Confucian version of Halloween rolled into one) and I thought I'd try to post another Korean monster, most of them are things already covered by monsters in D&D (OA) or else in Flying Swordsmen.  So I'll start my annual Halloween monster postings tonight with a jack-o-lantern monster.

Jack-O-Lantern
AC: 6 (14)
HD: 4*
Move: 120 (40)
Attacks: 1 bite/1 gaze
Damage: 2d6/blindness
No. Appearing: 1d6 (1d6)
Save As: F4
Morale: 7
Treasure Type: C
Alignment: Chaotic
XP:125

Jack-o-lanterns are evil spirits animating a scarecrow with a carved pumpkin head for a face.  The eyes, nose and mouth of the pumpkin glow with an eldritch light.  Despite their jerky movements, they are capable combatants, with iron-hard jaws.  In addition to their bite attack, jack-o-lanterns can use a gaze attack each round.  A target who meets the gaze (see standard penalties for avoiding the gaze under the Medusa) must Save vs. Paralyzation or stand still, unable to move for 1d6 Rounds.

From: www.sleepyholloween.org/

I personally plan to describe each jack-o-lantern's gaze differently.  One will be beams of light shooting out of the face like Lo Pan, another might be swirling, mesmerizing hell flames like Ghost Rider, another might release strands of ectoplasm which wrap up the victim.  Just to keep players on their toes and give them something cool to talk about.

Beast of the Week: Ossagi

Last night, I got home to find my wife and son were out.  Got a call about 5 minutes later, just before I was about to call her to see where they were.  They were at a restaurant having dinner with my sister-in-law.  I headed down to the restaurant and found my son, his cousins, and the owners' kid running around being "scared" by "ossagi" [오싹이].  Asking what ossagi was, they tell me it's a ghost.  According to my son, "It comes and goes."  "From the mirror," his cousin adds. 

I'd never heard of this type of Korean ghost before, so I immediately start plying my wife and sister-in-law with questions.  The best they can tell me is that it's transparent/invisible (the word for both is the same in Korean).  And a coward.  At home, my wife sends some text messages to the sister-in-law's friend who introduced ossagi to the kids.  Turns out it's a children's book character, sorta like the Korean version of Casper the Friendly Ghost.  Only he's a scaredy-cat. 

So here's an attempt to turn Ossagi into a D&D monster. One that requires a bit more challenge than just "roll to hit, roll damage" or Clerical Turning to conquer.

Ossagi*
Armor Class: 7 (13)
Hit Dice: 2**
Move: fly 150 (50)
Attacks: 1
Damage: special
No. Appearing: 1d4 (--)
Save As: Magic-User 2
Morale: 4
Treasure Type: N+O
Alignment: Chaotic
XP: 30


Ossagi are transparent undead spirit creatures that haunt mirrors.  They are drawn to magical auras, and can drain magic items of their power, or even steal the spells from the brains of spell-casters.  Ossagi can use mirrors to travel, similar to a dimension door spell, as long as they have a mirror to enter and one to exit within 360'.  When they attack, they do no physical damage, but instead drain one magic item, chosen at random, carried by the victim of its potency.  Permanent items are unusable for 1d4 Turns.  Charged items lose 1d6 charges.  One-use items are destroyed.  A spell-caster might instead be targeted, losing one of the highest level spells memorized at random.  In any case, a Save vs. Spells is allowed to avoid the magical drain.  Ossagi are cowardly, and often flee battles.  They are Turned by Clerics as Skeletons, except they cannot be destroyed by a Turn attempt (treat all D or D+ results as T).  Adventurers who have been victims of an ossagi attack often wish to chase them down.  When they are destroyed, their bodies explode in a magical burst, recharging any items drained by the ossagi, and refreshing the memorized spells of any caster.  In addition, the mirror in which the ossagi lairs will shatter, often dropping potions and scrolls.

Beast of the Week: Headless Horseman

Good old Legend of Sleepy Hollow.  Why the Headless Horseman isn't a standard D&D monster I don't know.  Anyway, I'm mixing Washington Irving's version with the Celtic Dullahan (also a Castlevania monster - bonus!) for this week's Beast.

Headless Horseman
AC: 5 (15)
HD: 6**
Move: 120 (40) (or as mount)
Attacks: 1 weapon
Damage: by weapon
No. Appearing: 1 (1-4)
Save As: F6
Morale: 10
Treasure Type: A (U)
Alignment: Chaotic
XP: 725

Headless Horsemen, also known as Dullahans, are undead decapitation victims who return to haunt the area of their death.  They ride large, fierce black horses, which may be war horses or riding horses.  Some rare versions may ride an undead horse or Nightmare.  Some Headless Horsemen are searching for the head the lost, others carry it with them in their hands or on their saddle pommel, and search for evildoers to slay and add their souls to the ranks of Hell.  They attack with weapons, but can also use the following spells: Knock, Cause Fear (at will), Cause Blindness (once per turn), Finger of Death (once per day).  As Undead creatures, Headless Horsemen are immune to sleep, charm and hold magic.  They can be Turned as Vampires.

Zombies? Bring em on!

Gamquistu - Games, Quizzes and Stuff.

Fixing an artificial problem

Thanks to Tenkar of Tenkar's Tavern for this well thought out reply to Mike Mearls' latest ruminations on Clerics and Turn Undead.

Anyone else remember back in the days of 3E when there was talk all the time of CoDzilla?  For those who wisely avoided d20 forums back in the 'oughts', the term stands for "Cleric or Druid-zilla" meaning that those two classes were supposedly superior to all the others.

Jozan Cleric, Superstar

I'm not gonna hash out the old arguments for/against CoDzilla.*

However, there's this idea that the Cleric is too powerful.  It comes from the fact that when 3E was being designed, there was this conventional wisdom that "no one wants to play the Cleric."  So they made the Cleric a much more attractive option.  Domain spells and powers, full spells from level 0 to 9 (instead of 1 to 5 or 1 to 7 as in old school games), and a spell list that was just as offensive as the Wizard if you wanted, plus spontaneous healing so you could actually load up on those attack/buff/utility spells and still heal when you needed to.  But it was pretty much the buff spells that sealed the CoDzilla deal.  With all that, some people might have even forgotten that Clerics could Turn undead!

So d20 made the Cleric too powerful.  Now, it looks like Mearls is forgetting that in old school D&D, the Cleric was NOT the powerhouse class.  Sure, they're nice.  But even the most powerful version of the class, in AD&D, pales in comparison to the d20 version.  So instead of just rolling back the clock on the Cleric a bit, Mearls seems to be hoping to develop some even more convoluted scheme to try to de-power the class.

Old school Turn Undead works well.  In Classic D&D, you roll 2d6 and have to beat a target number (7, 9, or 11).  On a 2d6 roll, you're more than 50% likely to roll that 7 or higher.  But you've got reduced odds to roll that 9, and that 11 or better is pretty rare.  Even with the 7, there's a good chance you'll fail.  The apparent problem comes from when the Cleric gains a level.  Suddenly, they've got an auto success against Skeletons.  By 5th level, they can automatically turn Wights.  But when a Cleric succeeds on their Turn roll, they roll 2d6 again to see how many HIT DICE run away.**  Roll that statistically most likely 7 on the number turned roll, and only 3 Wights are fleeing, meaning any encounter with more will leave at least one to possibly score that energy drain attack before the Cleric retries the next round.  Eventually, the Cleric can not only automatically succeed, but actually destroy the lesser undead.  You still roll that 2d6 to see how many hit dice are affected, though (very high level Clerics get to roll 3d6 HD worth destroyed).  But as Tenkar rightly points out, it's against low level undead that likely aren't much of a challenge anymore anyway.

Aleena couldn't even cast spells at Level 1.  Let her Turn some undead before Bargle kills her, OK?

The Cleric high enough to destroy a Spectre or Vampire (and in BECMI they get that up there in the Companion or Master levels) has enough spells that they will likely have a Protection from Evil spell anyway, preventing the undead from harming them.  Maybe even Pro. Evil 10' Radius, protecting the whole party.  And again, even if the Cleric destroys automatically, for those powerful undead it's likely not going to be more than one per round. 

The idea that a Cleric equals an automatic victory in any undead encounter is false, as is the idea that old school Turn Undead was overpowered.  It was a necessary power, and let me tell you, when PCs encounter level draining undead, if the Cleric has to roll to Turn, there's suspense in that roll.  Even with auto success/destruction, there's a lot riding on the number of HD turned.  Rolls like that add to the game experience.  I don't think many old school Fighters, Thieves and Magic-Users complained that they didn't get a chance to go toe-to-misty bottom with the Wraiths.  They were hoping that the Cleric would Turn them so that they wouldn't risk losing a level.


*for those who care, I found that most arguments tended to be that in an arena fight, where a Cleric/Druid had cast all of their buff spells on themselves, they could outfight a Fighter (plus Druids get animal companions).  Of course, if that Cleric or Druid blew all their spells on one combat, Fighter number 2 is going to whup up on them badly.  But it's all smoke and mirrors, because Clerics and Fighters weren't designed as classes to battle each other, they were designed to fight together against the monsters.

**In Holmes D&D, though, I think it is number of undead, rather than HD as in BX/BECMI.

The Haunted Keep! (Non-BX version)

Somewhere back when I was in high school, I finally got around to drawing up an adventure in The Haunted Keep on the Karamiekos map.  Since I'd started with Mentzer and had only ever had the slightest perusal of the Moldvay/Cook BX edition, I had never seen the sample dungeon in Moldvay's Basic book.

Which means, to my Castlevania inspired mind, my version of the Haunted Keep became the lair of a vampire.  And it was broken up into several sub-sections, each with a sort of 'boss' encounter, and a place to magically rest and recharge (just like how Castlevania levels end with that orb dropping to recharge your health after you beat the boss).  OK, maybe kinda lame, but the dungeon did have some pretty cool stuff in it, though.

Particularly, I'm fond of the castle's courtyard, which was a maze of semi-sentient thorn hedges.  You could chop your way through or try to fly over them, but you'd take damage doing so.

Maybe I'll get ambitious and type up the notes to go with these maps and make it into a downloadable PDF.  Don't think I'll have it done in time for Halloween this year, but oh well.

First, you had to make your way through the secret tunnels.

Then you had to go through the courtyard thorn maze.

Then you had to work your way through the crypts to get into the Keep.

Finally, you had the five levels of the Keep to deal with.

I remember that Killingmachine and I ran through this one night at his house. He played several of his PCs, and I ran several of mine to fill out the party. We had a blast, and I know we finally beat the vampire, and I don't think anyone got level drained too badly. :D

The Dreaded Energy Drain

This post on Dragonsfoot, in a long thread about the subject that was otherwise fairly boring (but long, as it's a subject people love to hate) got me thinking.

Energy Drain no longer drains a level of experience. You keep all your XP, your fighting potential and saves, your spells, your thief skills. You only lose that hit die.

You gain hit dice back only when you level, and for those over name level who have less than 9 hit dice, they continue to gain hit dice until they are at 9, then they get their standard hit points per level.

Makes Energy Drain a bit easier to figure out in the middle of play (no need to recalculate a bunch of stuff, decide which spell slots are lost, figure out how many XP are left, etc.). It also keeps energy drain scary, because every energy drain you take is lowering your total potential hit dice. And you don't want to be level 35 and only have 5 or 6 hit dice, assuming you can get that far...