Opinions on D&D Next Undead draining

Black Vulmea · September 10, 2012, 02:23:08 AM

Quote from: Wolf, Richard;579900From 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.

Source for this?

crkrueger · September 10, 2012, 06:11:48 AM

Quote from: Black Vulmea;581436Source for this?

Just past the Sigmoid Colon.

RPGPundit · September 11, 2012, 04:35:27 PM

Yeah, I never actually heard that as the literal reason for these monsters' existence.

RPGPundit

Sacrosanct · September 11, 2012, 05:30:25 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit;581730Yeah, I never actually heard that as the literal reason for these monsters' existence.

RPGPundit

Nor I, but I have read it in Dragon Magazine. Well, not the railroading part, but the "if your PCs ever get too powerful and you gave them too many magic items than what you intended and want to bring the campaign back under control, use rust monsters and undead."

RPGPundit · September 12, 2012, 05:27:37 PM

Quote from: Sacrosanct;581748Nor I, but I have read it in Dragon Magazine. Well, not the railroading part, but the "if your PCs ever get too powerful and you gave them too many magic items than what you intended and want to bring the campaign back under control, use rust monsters and undead."

Yes, I've seen that as a sort of bad GM advice. I think rust monsters and undead should be used whenever its suitable, not as a concerted effort to cut down the PCs' power level.

RPGPundit

Sacrosanct · September 12, 2012, 05:45:55 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit;582007Yes, I've seen that as a sort of bad GM advice. I think rust monsters and undead should be used whenever its suitable, not as a concerted effort to cut down the PCs' power level.

RPGPundit

Just my opinion mind you, but if you're a DM and you find your characters have gone way off the power train into Monty Haul? Perhaps it's time to wrap that campaign up instead of taking everything away.

RPGPundit · September 13, 2012, 06:23:55 PM

Quote from: Sacrosanct;582014Just my opinion mind you, but if you're a DM and you find your characters have gone way off the power train into Monty Haul? Perhaps it's time to wrap that campaign up instead of taking everything away.

Agreed.

Bill · September 14, 2012, 09:10:23 AM

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;579804I do like the level loss from undead, because nothing terrified me more as a player than level loss. Definitely makes undead frightening. As a gm I at least like having variants that do other things like drain con so I have an alternative to the big gun level drain vampire or wight.

The 'Fear Factor' of level draining undead is priceless.

Sometimes I would allow a character to recover a lost level through a quest of some sort, if it made sense in the setting.

Even a temporary level loss is brutal, so allowing the lost levels to return slowly would not be bad either.

Bobloblah · September 14, 2012, 11:00:33 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit;581420Hmm, I thought it was mentioned in the RC, but its not (I looked it up now), so you may well be right.

RPGPundit

Wasn't it the AD&D JuJu Zombie that did that? Don't have my books handy...

RPGPundit · September 15, 2012, 12:45:44 PM

Quote from: Bobloblah;582422Wasn't it the AD&D JuJu Zombie that did that? Don't have my books handy...

Could be, yes. That was from what, MMII?

RPGPundit