Level drain puts the fear of undead into players, plus it's not that terrible.  Restoration has been a thing since 1st Edition.

"BAWWWWW!  I don't wanna lose my precious levels!"
Then run away from undead opponents like the smart players do, and set up an ambush.  Sounds like more Whiny Entitlement Player™ bullshit to me.

I've never been a fan of level draining because "Oh no, I've forgotten how to use my sword the way I used to" due to losing a proficiency due to level drain just seemed incredibly...meta-gamey to me.

Quote from: Tommy Brownell;579863I've never been a fan of level draining because "Oh no, I've forgotten how to use my sword the way I used to" due to losing a proficiency due to level drain just seemed incredibly...meta-gamey to me.

That is my main problem with it as well. Its why I prefer loosing stats.

The idea that unearthly negative energy can atrophy muscle, cause illness or kill nerve endings thus reducing Str, Con or Dex just sits better.

However like I said doesn't work well in D&D where a hit that lost you HP might not be a hit and its certainly not as bad a hit as it was 6 levels ago.  

So I think damage that is hard to heal or maybe that just reduces your max Hit points ...... hmmm simple to book-keep, scary as fuck similar to level drain but not as metagamey.... My new Undead Solution is Born!

Quote from: jibbajibba;579869So I think damage that is hard to heal or maybe that just reduces your max Hit points ...... hmmm simple to book-keep, scary as fuck similar to level drain but not as metagamey.... My new Undead Solution is Born!

Damage that reduces your max hit points but can be healed with difficulty can work, but if it can never be healed, that's a problem.  

A 10th level character that (over the course of many adventures) loses 40 maximum hit points (reducing them from 65 to 25) probably won't be adventure worthy.  Replacing them with a new character, even a level lower, that isn't 'organic', would be a 'sensible' option.  To encourage people to keep with a character with some 'battle scars', it's better if they're never 'permanently disabled' without good reason - and a few encounters with vampires probably doesn't qualify.

Quote from: Tommy Brownell;579863I've never been a fan of level draining because "Oh no, I've forgotten how to use my sword the way I used to" due to losing a proficiency due to level drain just seemed incredibly...meta-gamey to me.

From what I understand the original justification for Level Drain and the Rust Monster was so that the DM could scale back the power of his players so that he could railroad them into the kind of adventures he was more comfortable with.

So yes, it is an entirely metagame mechanic, and generally plays into the "Playing my PC is like playing the Thimble in Monopoly" mode of play at Gygax's table than the way most people actually wound up playing the game.  That undead took on a mystique of danger seems rather coincidental.  The Rust Monster is likewise dreaded, but only for metagame reasons and not for ones appropriate to the fluff like undead.  

My own house rule was to brew up Curse-like mechanics (like the Curse spell) that various undead inflicted on struck victims that were essentially permanent until the curse was lifted.  Which isn't much different than Level Drain + Restoration but that avoided the wonky character sheet/xp/proficiency nonsense, as well as the in-game silliness of getting punched by Vampires making you forget stuff.

Mechanically, the initial Curse was harsher than the Level Drain, but I didn't make it stack with itself, so once the Vampire smacked you once, you could feel relatively free to tangle with it (excepting it's otherwise fearsome combat statistics).  Although there isn't any reason that it couldn't stack, if you scaled back the penalty (or even just cooked up a bunch of different curses that were randomly applied).

Quote from: Tommy Brownell;579863I've never been a fan of level draining because "Oh no, I've forgotten how to use my sword the way I used to" due to losing a proficiency due to level drain just seemed incredibly...meta-gamey to me.

Yes, this was my issue
SO with us, ther was a save, but if missed, damage from an undead like this was permanent without the proper spell.  So undead like this still scare the living (pun meant) shit out of my PCs.

I like a lot of these ideas that make undead still terrifying without the level drain.

It's bad. But compared to eradication or zeroed-out CON it's scary yet OK. Trying undead inducing rapid aging (like how seeing a ghost left some people looking aged or with shock white hair?) just ended up retiring characters faster (used a % not actual years - yes even dwarves and elves were afraid). And, though I liked that aging effect, I only liked it once in a while.

What I think the issue is is earliest D&D didn't have a CoC SAN mechanic (which in retrospect doesn't do what I always want either) -- though it did get personality disadvantages later. Level drain seems like a sloppy mechanic at first, but considering other solutions have other side effects, it's not wholly objectionable. Again I just throw it into the grab bag of nasty effects during monster design.

I do like other solutions here, though. Stat attacks were nice, if they were recoverable. Recovering a point of stat a day is faster than I experienced, dunno if I like that but whatever. And curses are nice. Those are easy to vary from temporary to permanent, and from immediate to delayed threat. I think it really depends how lethal you want your monster.

I kinda wish they hadn't wussed out. Just grey box it as a monster build option and talk about how it can affect your games. Now it's damage with a keyword, which could usher in that initially convenient but later eye-roll inducing trend from 4e, that does monster heal. Fine health drain, something familiar from video games, but could've been more... dunno, scary?

The idea that CON loss represents accelerated aging is pretty cool. "That squire went off to the Devil's Basement a strapping young lad... and came back a shell of a man, with cloudy, haunted eyes and hair as white as mine!".

Quote from: Premier;579786I always thought that level drain on a hit was a cheap sucker punch - in any halfway serious combat situation you can't really do anything to avoid getting hit, and so a permanent and serious loss becomes a matter of dumb luck and statistical inevitability rather than the result of player skill.

I've adopted Melan's solution, where formerly level-draining undead simply do ability damage, typically Constitution or Strength: getting drained to zero kills you, normal healing spells won't restore your loss, but you regain them at a rate of 1 point a day. This stll keeps them dangerous (especially incorporeal undead which ignore armour) and your handicap (lower attack modifier or total HP) is bound to linger around for a significant period of time, but removes the "Ha-ha, FUCK YOU FOREVER!" unfairness of level loss.

This was my logic behind making that change, yeah. And Constitution loss (1d6 for wights and wraiths, 2d4 for spectres and vampires) is plenty scary, especially when the undead come in packs.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;579889Damage that reduces your max hit points but can be healed with difficulty can work, but if it can never be healed, that's a problem.  

A 10th level character that (over the course of many adventures) loses 40 maximum hit points (reducing them from 65 to 25) probably won't be adventure worthy.  Replacing them with a new character, even a level lower, that isn't 'organic', would be a 'sensible' option.  To encourage people to keep with a character with some 'battle scars', it's better if they're never 'permanently disabled' without good reason - and a few encounters with vampires probably doesn't qualify.

I wouldn't be so concerned with the meta gamey level myself. But the usual spells, like restoration etc should be able to fix it.
If you make some undead this powerful it means you use them as a heavy spice and a pinch goes a long way.

The challenge for the 10th level party is now a single vampire who will try to split the part and hit and run and use their magic and other powers.

In Microlite74, I give the following optional rule to replace level drain for groups that do not like it. It's still nasty as it reduces your effectiveness in most D20 rolls for a time (quite a long time in the case of more powerful undead).

QuoteEnergy Drain: If the standard energy drain rule seems too harsh, try the following instead. Each energy level drained subtracts one from any roll to which the character would add his level (or his level/2). 1 point of energy drained is recovered every L days where L is equal to the hit dice of the monster that drained the energy level.

Quote from: jibbajibba;579869That is my main problem with it as well. Its why I prefer loosing stats.

The idea that unearthly negative energy can atrophy muscle, cause illness or kill nerve endings thus reducing Str, Con or Dex just sits better.

However like I said doesn't work well in D&D where a hit that lost you HP might not be a hit and its certainly not as bad a hit as it was 6 levels ago.  

So I think damage that is hard to heal or maybe that just reduces your max Hit points ...... hmmm simple to book-keep, scary as fuck similar to level drain but not as metagamey.... My new Undead Solution is Born!

I changed the level drain to permanent hp loss years ago.  It has worked wonderfully

Quote from: Tommy Brownell;579863I've never been a fan of level draining because "Oh no, I've forgotten how to use my sword the way I used to" due to losing a proficiency due to level drain just seemed incredibly...meta-gamey to me.

This is why I'm not a fan of proficiency slots to begin with. They act too much like skills IMHO in an abstract level based system. I much prefer the OD&D, and B/X solution: are you a fighting man? Why yes. You are hereby considered competent in wielding weapons of war.

AD&D really took a dump on the poor fighter by saying, 'here pick 4 weapons that you don't suck with."

Quote from: RandallS;579972In Microlite74, I give the following optional rule to replace level drain for groups that do not like it. It's still nasty as it reduces your effectiveness in most D20 rolls for a time (quite a long time in the case of more powerful undead).

This seems hellish as far as bookkeeping goes. There are multiple pieces of information to keep track of/remember on a regular basis during game time. (What -ve level came from what creature, how many HD the creature has, how many days since recovering a -ve level, how many -ve levels the character has any time they make a die roll...)

Semi-permanent HP or Ability damage is my solution. Vile damage from the book of vile darkness was pretty nasty in 3ed, and was pretty simple to keep track of.

I envision Necrotic Damage to be similar. Requires special spells, etc in order to heal from it, but not only that, Necrotic Damage should do as it's namesake suggests, and cause necrosis in the flesh around the wound, perhaps causing continuous ability damage as well as HP damage. Give the characters a reason to fear it, without it being an immediate death sentence, or it being just simply unfair.

(I see level loss as unfair. Players work hard to gain experience. Throwing them against an undead opponent that can strip away that hard work with a single hit is... unfair. If a DM is so worried about how powerful the PC's are getting, find another way to bring balance to the game using something more creative.)