The level-drain thread promotes, as one option, taking damage to ability scores instead of draining levels. I associate this idea with the "new school", even though it appears in places as early as 1e (see the shadow, for example.) And to me, ability score drain is an even bigger problem than level drain, for many reasons:

• It's much more "meta". I have no problem coming up with in-fiction explanations of what level drain represents, but what is charisma loss? A slow loss of sparkle in your eyes? Even where I could find a reasonable interpretation, it feels much more artificial, like I'm manipulating numbers on the sheet just because I can.
  
• It adds bookkeeping. If you add Con loss, you are basically adding another, smaller hit point pool to your sheet and tracking two kinds of damage (one to hit points, one to Con.) If there are other kinds of ability score loss, it's even worse; you could potentially wind up with seven individual hit point pools. And that's not even taking into account changing modifiers, like earned experience modifiers or reaction bonuses.
  
• It doesn't make much of a difference, in many cases. I use OD&D, without the expanded ability score modifiers from Greyhawk, so in some cases, there's no real effect until the character is completely drained. Seems like too much bookkeeping for no real effect.
  
• It's harder to recover from. There's no by-the-book way to increase ability scores except through rare magic (wishes, magical tomes which work once each.) You could add some recovery rules, but that automatically means more complication.
  

Now, obviously, even 3e is close enough to OD&D that monster conversion isn't impossible. But what would be a good replacement for any ability drain ability? I have some ideas, but I'm looking for others.

Quote from: talysman;603227

• It's much more "meta". I have no problem coming up with in-fiction explanations of what level drain represents, but what is charisma loss? A slow loss of sparkle in your eyes? Even where I could find a reasonable interpretation, it feels much more artificial, like I'm manipulating numbers on the sheet just because I can.
  
• It adds bookkeeping. If you add Con loss, you are basically adding another, smaller hit point pool to your sheet and tracking two kinds of damage (one to hit points, one to Con.) If there are other kinds of ability score loss, it's even worse; you could potentially wind up with seven individual hit point pools. And that's not even taking into account changing modifiers, like earned experience modifiers or reaction bonuses.
  
• It doesn't make much of a difference, in many cases. I use OD&D, without the expanded ability score modifiers from Greyhawk, so in some cases, there's no real effect until the character is completely drained. Seems like too much bookkeeping for no real effect.
  
• It's harder to recover from. There's no by-the-book way to increase ability scores except through rare magic (wishes, magical tomes which work once each.) You could add some recovery rules, but that automatically means more complication.
  

Now, obviously, even 3e is close enough to OD&D that monster conversion isn't impossible. But what would be a good replacement for any ability drain ability? I have some ideas, but I'm looking for others.

Charisma is the one case where it's meta. Str, con, and dex all make sense. Int makes sense. Wis is kind of a stupid ability score because it's willpower and perception at the same time, but you can see someone having a hard time noticing things.

Book keeping is a fairish point.

Effect depends on how scores relate to other stats, so that's context-dependent.

And as for healing, either don't let it heal (in which case it might work like sanity in CoC... it sticks and eventually you will no longer be able to play this guy) or just add another spell or tack the effect on to a spell. Not that big a deal.

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As for what to replace it with, what would you want the new mechanic to actually do? What would you want it to model?

Quote from: beejazz;603230As for what to replace it with, what would you want the new mechanic to actually do? What would you want it to model?

I would want to model what little non-meta explanations are present. For example, the shadow makes you weaker. I would want to model increasing weakness, in the simplest way possible. Similarly, if a creature caused a decrease in mental ability, I would want to model increasing feeble-mindedness.

Except that ability score loss, as you pointed out, was an Old School feature; the "new school" feature is "negative levels", which is REALLY a book-keeping nightmare.

Ability scores getting lost or gained is really freaking common in old-school D&D, and I don't have a problem with it.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;603724Except that ability score loss, as you pointed out, was an Old School feature; the "new school" feature is "negative levels", which is REALLY a book-keeping nightmare.

Ability scores getting lost or gained is really freaking common in old-school D&D, and I don't have a problem with it.

It's not *really* common. Doesn't happen in OD&D, at least not until Greyhawk, and even then, it's just Shadows. There may have been a couple other monsters added in AD&D's first monster manual, but it's still pretty rare for a while. Certainly rarer than level drain, which became a nightmare in bookkeeping in 2e and maybe 1e, but is a snap in OD&D, compared to the changing ability mods due to ability drain.

But that's my point: I don't like it. You play something closer to 1e or 2e, so level drain is a bigger problem for you, and you asked for suggestions on what to replace it with. I made a couple suggestions in your thread, as did a few others. Now, I'm telling you that, since I play OD&D without the Greyhawk modifications, ability drain is a bigger problem for me than level drain, and I'd like a replacement. How could we rewrite the shadow so that it still fits the same concept, but doesn't use level drain?

Hero/Action point drain.

That'll scare the shit out of the fuckers.

Quote from: One Horse Town;603745Hero/Action point drain.

That'll scare the shit out of the fuckers.

That scares the shit out of *me*. Hero points, I mean. Only hero points I ever use are wishes.

In my OD&D, my shadows give a -1 STR modifier penalty, but it wears off or can be eliminated with magic. So there is less bookkeeping and more fear since if the fighter gets hit 3 times, he's -3 to hit and -3 to damage and -3 to STR checks.

How does it heal? In my OD&D, a day of rest will eliminate one shadow touch and a Remove Curse will wipe away all touches on one individual.

But my OD&D goes to level 10 max so 3rd level spells like a Remove Curse is notable usage of magical resource.

You ask 'what is Charisma loss'?  I think that is actually easy to explain.  It's the loss of vital -presence-.  'There isn't as much there there'; your ability to be likable fades into apathy, apathy fades into despair, until you just aren't capable of caring enough to -breathe- (death by CHA loss).  It's personality and force of presence, vitality of soul.  That's why in my games, it's the absolute rarest of them all and the most dreaded.

As for replacing the stats, there -is- a precedent for raising stats in 1E -- Cavaliers have it, actually.  2d10 per level, kept track of seperately, upon reaching 100 a new point is gained and the 00 carries over.  I do this with all characters, but only with a maximum of +2 to their initial scores (so if you had a starting Wisdom of 14, you couldn't naturally go above a 16 with this method; magic bonuses are additive, though).  This also gives characters a chance to recover from stat-affecting drain in ways other than a pure Wish spell or the Manual of Bodily Health, for instance.

Not trying to sway you, just giving an interpretation/idea that may be palatable to you.

Quote from: One Horse Town;603745Hero/Action point drain.

That'll scare the shit out of the fuckers.

If they use them or they care at all. Which in itself is not an automatism, unless hero/action points are necessary to play the game in any meaningful way, which is where I'd go "really?". Each time I've had some hero/action points in a game, the players just didn't care for them, and when they did, it seemed just annoyingly artificial when all they wanted to do was describe what they do and actually do it.

Quote from: CerilianSeeming;603916You ask 'what is Charisma loss'?

People are getting WAY too focused on single-explanations and one-size-fits-all on these things. You can explain effects like this ad hoc, given the particulars of each situation as they come into play, like boom this guy's face melts and he's ugly now, or that guy just smells bad and talks funny and no one can take him seriously anymore. Whatever the case may be.

Quote from: beejazz;603230Charisma is the one case where it's meta.

I can think of several ways to model that in-game; irritability and abrasive behavior or becoming withdrawn and non-interactive, for example. Both of which can be seen as the result of a bad experience with some kind of monster, poison, or trap quite easily.

Quote from: Benoist;604064If they use them or they care at all. Which in itself is not an automatism, unless hero/action points are necessary to play the game in any meaningful way, which is where I'd go "really?". Each time I've had some hero/action points in a game, the players just didn't care for them, and when they did, it seemed just annoyingly artificial when all they wanted to do was describe what they do and actually do it.

Yeah, i agree, but i bet it'd scare the shit out of people who do use them if there's a threat of taking them away.

A wight literally takes away your heroic-ness! Run! De-protaganism!

Charisma drain would be someone shell-shocked into losing his sense of social appropriateness.

RPGPundit