Life drain is painful, it can kill and it's costly to repair.

Another possibility is to implement BLOOD DRAIN.

And rather than life draining or con-point lowering.

You actually TAKE xp away, small amounts of course, probably only as much as you'd get in xp for killing the things doing it.

Though they'd do it PER hit.

So maybe 1-5 xp per hit on you they can actually delevel you if you've just gone up.

You can give them ranged abilities like this too incase you think the meleers are getting a raw serve (though the meleers are likely to get hit less anyway, if one of these things gets into melee with a low ac range person they're in trouble anyway)

It's just a possible alternative to "draining" abilities some undead get rather than the normal, disease, level loss, attribute loss.. Negative plane protection SHOULD still make you immune to this ability.

On a quest featuring these creatures likely you'd want to give NON-xp rewards as well as xp rewards as sometimes some people may come out of the quest with LESS xp than they started (when things go badly)

....whhhyyy?

Oh I dont know maybe as an alternative to killing players to slow their xp gain down :)

You sound scared :D

Essentially, like the things that do level drain but instead of losing three levels you lose three hundred XP - so they're just miniature versions? 4 xp per hit isn't really that scary though. I'd probably go with 10-20 or so at least, going up if they're supposed to be more of a challenge.

I agree that there should be fairly awesome loot on a quest populated with these things. If each one can be expected to last about 4 combat rounds on average (something that does damage like that should be pretty scary otherwise as well, no point having uber scary powers and AC12, 4HP, AB3) draining maybe 50xp each if you don't kill them quickly enough, and the quest contains 5-10 of them and a bunch of other random less scary things (skeletons/zombies?).

500xp loss spread out over whoever took the hits (a ray attack would make them extra scary). Likely up to about 200 each for the frontliners if they are unlucky. Giving enough xp to balance out what was lost kinda detracts from the point - maybe about 250xp (Which is nothing). But lots of gold and some shiny shiny shiny loot would make it worth it.

(especially if you remember that restoration heals level drain but probably wouldn't restore this. So it'd be permanent.)

As far as I'm concerned, level drain does it just fine.

I like level drain. It provides the suitable respect for the monster/undead it needs.

Remember what usually happened in PnP when these things were spotted (them or a rust monster). Usually a lot of running.

Thanks for the suggestion, but no.

-Cross

I wasnt suggesting replacing level drain , it's just a different sort of DRAIN.. for a different creature that's all.

It COULD replace certain ones, i'm not even sure if it's possible.

Its possible, but terribly unlikely many players will want it.

I'm not -scared-. I'm just asking -why-? An "alternative" isn't really a good reason. Here's an alternative to a sword: spitting at your enemy. Unless you're a fire beetle, what's that gonna do?

You want a creature that drains XP? There is one in EFU, already.

It's called "Player who wants you to craft wands or potions" :P

If you would have seen the potion orders I got you wouldn't say 7 XP per potion is a laughing matter either. :)

Maybe give it to the bats? Am guessing the bats that attack you are blood suckers and they hunt in packs so they'll be a tad more annoying

I don't think this idea has much merit.

Nope.

Whats wrong with you...?

As if leveling and not having some other PC murder your char wasnt hard enough.

Nym only lived to be level four *mourns the loss of his 17 chaisma paladin* stupid half orcs >.>

It just doesn't really fit with how XP is handled by the rules. You gain XP for overcoming encounters. They shouldn't take it from you. Level drain works fine as it is.

Can level drain be dispelled? And dont say find out IG because i DONT plan on getting level drained :)

And also, you loose like, 1 xp for crafting wands, shouldnt you gain xp for being able to enchant something?