Yes it's annoying, but that's part of the game. Vampires can drain you vital force til you die (by loosing levels, you loose THAC0, HP and so on).
I guess you're also the kind of people who prefer that dead people auto-rez at the end of a fight instead of having to bring their corpse to a temple or casting a spell ?
That's why I hated Dragon age, amongst other things...
You missed the point of my post.
This is not about making the game easier. I think the basic ideas behind level drain are awesome: Make characters weaker by MAKING them weaker? Sweet! What I don't like is how every aspect of the ability makes it downright annoying to deal with, as if they were trying to frustrate the player: -No real counterplay besides getting a select item/playing select class (Thanks for bringing that up someone). -Spells dememorise. -Being hit means you have to go through a routine of re-memorising spells or keeping extremely situational spells available.
I like that you bring up death, though. After the first couple of levels in BG1, death is mostly a mechanic designed to punish you. However, there are a few reasons why I don't have a problem with raise dead or running down to a temple if needed: -It's a possibility common to ALL enemy encounters, and not just a select few. -It's a punishment for the player who fail to micromanage their party properly, and not a punishment for simply being hit. -Death can be prevented by a number of means. Restoring hit points and moving out of the way are both of these.
"I think Level Drain should stay in the game, but the implementation should be modified in some way."
It seems people are choosing this option and then saying spells/abilities that counter/heal Level Drain should be modified - this obviously isn't the same as (and I paraphrase) "the implementation of Level Drain should be modified".
"The implementation of Level Drain should be modified" was written to not only refer to the ability itself, but the mechanics surrounding the ability including counterplay and curing mechanics. They were correct to select that option per your description.
You're right. I chose the wrong vote. I do not wish for the implementation of the spell to change, only maybe, the implementation of some of the spells to counter/cure it.
"You just want the game to be easier" Reply - "If you read the post you'll actually note that I barely discuss the difficulty of fights and battles and focus on why Level Drain is frustrating to have used on your characters. My intention is to remove the annoying nature of the current implementation whilst keeping its main effects on the combat scenario to a minimum and adding counter-play options similar to what other spells have."
I don't have difficulty dealing with vampires and such. However, dealing with them is the biggest pain since the two main counter-items are retrieved within half an hour of each other.
Level Drain invokes a certain "fear" with it. If the "fear" of being level drained is part of the game, then that's fine. However, what I dislike about the mechanic is that it brings this "fear" on through the annoyance of having to deal with it afterwards, rather than being scared of the effects IN THE COMBAT. If a combat ability doesn't make you scared of what will happen DURING COMBAT that's supposed to make you feel "fear", then it's just a poor implementation in my opinion. If the counterplay abilities suck to drive in that fear, then so be it. The problem is that the spell appears to be designed to suck post-combat.
To be honest I wouldn't mind the effects of level drain to be buffed if there was counterplay besides "get a certain item" or "rest twice afterwards".
In many of the old RPGs I played like Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy on the Nintendo you would receive effects like Poison/Petrification which were permanent effects. You would eventually die without drinking a potion or casting a spell to cure the effect. Petrification was like death in this game. I don't recall it being as easy as just reloading to a certain point before I had that happen either. It was annoying, but part of the challenge.
@Mathmick, First, no need to be nasty with people.
Second, I guess I am not getting your argument, so maybe you can clarify. You indicate that level drain doesn't impact "IN COMBAT" (where your exact words). Once hit, every single character impacted by level drain immediately loses hit points and ability to hit opponents. They also lose IMMEDIATELY and in combat, any spells that they no longer qualify to cast (in or out of combat). Furthermore, they are susceptible to any spells at lower saving throws directly in combat. Seems to me that the impact is direct and right away AS WELL AS what happens after combat.
But let's examine what you suggest. That it be a 'Debuff' that wears off in combat. In what way does that make them just as terrifying?
I had one combat in BG2 once where my only cleric got nailed and reduced below the ability to cast Lesser Restoration. I had to retreat out of the dungeon and seek the assistance of a temple in order to get back in the game. To you, I imagine that falls under the category of 'nuisance'. To me, that made me really terrified of Vampires. In a very real sense, their abilities actually had impact not only on that individual combat, but it had broad ranging impact on any further combats that I might get in to. There was a permanence to the attack that said this wasn't something that could be resolved by downing a healing potion.
One of the biggest pains "To Me" in the game is getting hit by Confusion. This disables my party members and leaves them wandering around, sometimes actually damaging my other party members. But even that is transient until I can either wait it out or remove it by magic. Level drain has the potential to be MUCH more terrifying. Sure, it is a PITA. Sure it lasts a while and requires some significant effort to recover from it. You think that is annoying. I think that is the STRENGTH of the attack.
But, so what would you recommend to replace it? I would be first in line to say Nay to a transient Debuff, specifically for the reasons above. And ability reductions are variable in nature such that what significantly impacts one class or character would be negligible to another. So what other options are there?
You're probably right there. I probably don't get hit by it enough to feel the combat effects. (Have item or reload if hit usually).
Still, something irks me about having a game mechanic which has a main goal of frustrating the player. At least Confusion can be counter-spelled by a common third-level spell. One of my personal dislikes, fear, also has its counters. It doesn't feel right that the most problematic part of an enemy ability is getting rid of the effects, and not dealing with it then and there. I feel like I should care about being hit by it, however whenever I am hit I stop caring about how my character is weaker in combat, and focus more on "Ugggggh.... I have to deal with getting rid of this thing now."
Nonetheless, fighting a losing argument or no, I do think I achieved my goal of seeing everyone's opinion on this. Spell memory at the very least should be implemented, though changing the dynamic of Level Drain vs. Negative Plane Protection is still arguable.
The drain con idea sounds better to me since con means hit points and hit points mean life. Afterall, you use the positive energy plain to use healing spells giving you hit points aka "life" (couldn't you overload and "explode" on life energy if you used to much in PnP?). On top of that, the con drain is also a quick and easy fix. Just implement it the same way it works when a mage familiar dies. It just drains hit points via con and not levels meaning no rememorizing spells or losing a number of natural abilities and it's still dangerous. Also, it makes vampires dangerous even at high levels (assuming a cleric can't turn them) since they would be stat draining you. How many of you can claim that putting on the attack nearest script and charging headstrong into the illithid encampment in watchers keep made you anything but dead? I also feel it should be temporary. Temporary would mean you just heal it off over time. If you can heal off an illithid sucking out your brain and making you lose intelligence, then I would like to think a vampire draining con would work the same way. With that said, beware vampire illithids.
@subtledoctor. Ok, it isn't fun to you. And you don't want to be scared by the same things that your character are scared about. OK?? That is a bit weird to me, but hey. To each their own.
As far as CON is concerned, or any of the permutations you mentioned with CON/STR etc... A wizard with a 1 CON can be just as formidable as with a 16 CON. Even with a hit of CON and STR, he can still cast some pretty powerful spells. Fighters, on the other hand, lose not only the ability to be a meat shield. With lower CON they lose their ability to do any actual Melee combat, which is their primary ability. Sans that, they are archers and if they don't have a good ranged weapon, or the STR/DEX to use it properly, they are hosed. See how this is very far from equal?
Also, in reading your list of "all sorts of things you can do", none of them speak to "Don't fight these things until and unless you are ABSOLUTELY ready to do so." And that is the true essence of both the problem and the power of Vampires in BG2. You are supposed to avoid them at all costs until you have the ability (and magic) to stand up to them. A simple "in combat" solution is never going to do that.
To example. In BG1, the first time you encounter a basilisk, and it turns your fighter to stone, I bet that scared you. I know it did me. And it was different than hit points. I couldn't use the same tactics of "Meat shield" to block it. it really made me re-think my strategy against them. And avoid them until I had the magic and power to knock them out. Sans the ability to turn characters to stone, they are really rather useless and wimpy. But with them, you learn to stay away until you can prepare and attack them.
Vampires in BG2 are the basilisks of BG2. But even more so because they are primary to the story. If you 'defang' them as you suggest, they become nothing more than a slightly higher damage monster with regeneration. Even the ability to 'or fall asleep' is a combat only solution. And as such, there would have to be a protection against that. But more than that, you (or at least I) wouldn't fear them as anything other than a slightly more powerful combatant. Unless the impact lasted far beyond the combat and in fact effected every subsequent combat until the effects were removed.
But at the end of the day, the fact that you don't want to be 'scared' by the possibility of facing vampires suggests that you want to feel superior to all of the monsters in the game. In BG as in any type of game, if there isn't the possibility of failure, and in fact if you aren't afraid of failure, where is the challenge? Where is the thrill of beating something? If you aren't afraid of it, how can you feel triumphant if you win against it?
I think an ease of use improvement is to have level drained spellcasters still remember the spells memorized previously after restoration but must rest first to recover lost spells due to level drain.
Another change I would like is to add a new level 7 spell, Negative Plane Protection 10 radius just like Protection from Evil 10 Radius. This is analogous to lv7 Greater Restoration which heals and removes level drain for the entire party.
Vampires are are one of the more dangerous DnD creatures ONLY because of Level Drain. It is an extremely powerful ability that makes otherwise wussy enemies (Wights, some shadows, vampires, some demons, a few other misc creatures) legitimate threats.
That's like saying, hey lets remove Beholder's Eye beams and anti-magic cone because they'll strip all my buffs, prevent my spell casting and utterly destroy my party if I'm not extremely careful or using the shield of cheese, against even a single beholder (that are actually MUCH weaker then they should be), god forbid a city full of them.
I mean hell, even Ravenloft vampires still have level drain on hit, and they implement much more folk-lore accurate versions then BG or general DnD does.
It's not like it's hard to counter either, with all of BG2's hand-holding.
Characters above level 10, have so much HP, unless you do something REALLY stupid, you have no realistic chance of being killed by anything short of a Lich, High tier demon, or Beholder (sadly dragons and mind flayers are a joke and don't make the cut). Level Drain is a largely upper level mechanic to keep the threat of death present in high level adventurers.
Core DnD vampires have highly concentrated negative energy that is unleashed through physical strikes. So much so in fact, anyone drained to death by a vampire, is reanimated as another vampire by the residual negative energy after a period of days if restoration isn't cast on or holy water isn't poured liberally over the remains before burial to purge the energy. (that reproduction aspect of level draining is true of all level draining undead, it's how they propagate. Even the spells Enervation (not currently implemented) and Energy drain are supposed to (currently don't) reanimate the target as an undead creature (usually a zombie of 1/2 (enervation) or equal HD (Energy Drain) to the original creature, under the caster's control) if it dies as a result of the spell.
Vampire's do have a vampire bite, it's only usable against helpless (victims of their dominating gaze or sleeping people) or grappled (not implemented in BG) targets, which allows them basically instant kill the target via level draining as a coup de grace, or auto-drain several levels per round for grappled targets (similar to how Mind Flayer's eating your brain is SUPPOSED to work, none of this draining int on hit BS, except it's an instant kill on the next turn if you don't break their grapple).
Level drain isn't even common. There's a few areas where you face a bunch of level drainers at once, and then LONG stretches without anyone draining levels. And you'll most likely have to pick different spells anyway since those areas have specific needs, so it's not even an inconvenience to repick spells, unless you do something cheesy like resting after every 1-2 fights, and I fail to see why restoration needs it fatigue removed...you're gonna rest afterward anyway to recover lost special ability uses or spells regardless. (Not that BG's fatigue isn't an F'ing joke in the first place...if we had IWD fatigue..I might see your argument...but by the time you get to level draining enemies in BG2, a loss of 1 or 2 thac0 is a joke....mages are the only ones that get even a minor inconvenience out of the BG fatigue).
It's probably been mentioned already, but it'd be nice if your spell selection would be remembered. That's the only reason I voted as I did. I think level drain is fine otherwise.
@ZanathKariashi - Level Drain sucks to deal with because of all the stuff you have to deal with post-combat. Getting rid of it can be a pain if you are in a bad situation, and re-memorisation is horrible to deal with.
When you walk around the corner and see a group of vampires/wraiths etc., which of these matches your first thoughts: -"Oh no, that group of Vampires will use Level Drain to tear my group apart if I'm not careful!" -"Oh no, that group of Vampires will use Level Drain and force me to re-memorise my spell lists after altering priest spells
Personally, I don't care about losing THAC0, HP or even memorised spells mid-combat. It's the process of getting rid of it afterwards (Priest re-memorise or at worst a trip back to town) that makes it stupid and frustrating to deal with. In combat, there probably could be better ways of dealing with it, but that's fine the way it is. The frustrating time spent doing this could be better spent doing more dungeon-exploring or fighting other things. Instead you have this effect that has an unnecessary down-time associated with just getting rid of it, disrupting game flow and detracting from the more enjoyable aspects of slaughtering more stuff, looting chests for neat new items or otherwise simply exploring.
Level drain isn't even common. There's a few areas where you face a bunch of level drainers at once, and then LONG stretches without anyone draining levels. And you'll most likely have to pick different spells anyway since those areas have specific needs, so it's not even an inconvenience to repick spells, unless you do something cheesy like resting after every 1-2 fights, and I fail to see why restoration needs it fatigue removed...you're gonna rest afterward anyway to recover lost special ability uses or spells regardless. (Not that BG's fatigue isn't an F'ing joke in the first place...if we had IWD fatigue..I might see your argument...but by the time you get to level draining enemies in BG2, a loss of 1 or 2 thac0 is a joke....mages are the only ones that get even a minor inconvenience out of the BG fatigue).
I think the rarity of Vampires is intentional. As is the high impact that they have with their attack (capitalizing on an ability they have in PnP). You are Meant to be afraid of them. They are supposed to be a threat far beyond anything that you have faced up to that point. And that one encounter you refer to is precisely why. You get a choice. If you go one way, you have to do that fight. If you go the other, I am not sure but that you might also, but it really says something important about that one choice (not going to spoiler it). But yeah, they are supposed to be tough. And in ways that simple mages or other monsters simply aren't.
Precisely the point. You're not supposed to have fun when slaughtering your way through vampires and other draining creatures. They're some of the few enemies in DnD that can literally wreck an adventuring groups day, and are there to keep the game from being a boring malaise of 1-shotting everything by looking at it funny, like every other area that doesn't have level draining undead are.
And for your question, none of the above. I go "Finally, a real challenge!"....at least until that A-hole cleric insta-gibs them with turning (or commands them and makes them kill each other) and I start cursing.
Obviously, if you're having trouble, you're not preparing adequately. If you suspect level draining enemies, stick a restoration or two in your first couple spell slots, so they'll most likely survive removal if drained. Or hell, just carry a scroll case of restoration scrolls like I do. Unless you screw up majorly, your caster's should never get level drained, unless they're a hybrid warrior type, which don't really NEED their spells, so even if they lose them all, they can still hack their way through the enemies, even if fatigued, after a quick restoration scroll (only used if they're REALLY low and in danger of dying, otherwise I wait till the end).
@ZanathKariashi - Level Drain sucks to deal with because of all the stuff you have to deal with post-combat. Getting rid of it can be a pain if you are in a bad situation, and re-memorisation is horrible to deal with.
When you walk around the corner and see a group of vampires/wraiths etc., which of these matches your first thoughts: -"Oh no, that group of Vampires will use Level Drain to tear my group apart if I'm not careful!" -"Oh no, that group of Vampires will use Level Drain and force me to re-memorise my spell lists after altering priest spells
Personally, I don't care about losing THAC0, HP or even memorised spells mid-combat. It's the process of getting rid of it afterwards (Priest re-memorise or at worst a trip back to town) that makes it stupid and frustrating to deal with. In combat, there probably could be better ways of dealing with it, but that's fine the way it is. The frustrating time spent doing this could be better spent doing more dungeon-exploring or fighting other things. Instead you have this effect that has an unnecessary down-time associated with just getting rid of it, disrupting game flow and detracting from the more enjoyable aspects of slaughtering more stuff, looting chests for neat new items or otherwise simply exploring.
It is sad we are to this point with games where we just want to do away with all annoyances. I feel this myself whenever I play a game that throws these types of things my way. When I was young I had infinite patience for them. There was no map showing me where everything was or where to go. It was easy to miss things. There were harsh penalties for dying. You had to work together in groups to survive challenges. The annoyances are what made the game memorable. It is really that much time to stop and cast a spell to remove level drain or to go to a cleric and get in removed? Probably not. It's more a lack of patience on our part these days. In other words there is more to games then just killing things and looting. I think we tend to forget that these days with the way game makers make games.
Just let the game remember which spells are in the removed spell slots so you don't have to reenter them every time. This would also make mages dying less of a pain because their ever memory is removed thenn.
I once played an Undead Hunter campaign simply for this reason (immunity to level drain). But it's kind of an underwhelming kit with little else going for it.
The OP left out that a wise mage can also cast Limited Wish and sometimes get Negative Plane Protection for the whole party. I'm not sure about the duration, though.
I'd like to see NPP become an AOE party buff with a longer duration that scales with level. The fatigue on Restoration needs to go, too.
Or make Turn Undead prevent level drain from being used in the area. You trade your cleric for protection.
Like petrification and fear, it should be pretty manageable with preparation.
It has been awhile since I last played BG2, but I don't remember this being that big of a deal. As I recall, vampires were a cakewalk thanks to the spell False Dawn (especially when you have 2 or 3 casters doing it at the same time).
It's the unique and most feared aspect of the most powerful undead. You may find it annoying but it ups the challenge of the game considerably. You actually have to think ahead and play carefully, preparing negative plan protection spells, items, and bringing restoration scrolls, etc. If you omit level drain, vampires are above avarage melee fighters with charm ability (which is easy to counter and offers a save) With level drain, they are feared and horrible monsters of the night and legends.
I prefer to leave it alone. The game needs hazards like this imo. Perhaps nerf it with the difficulty slider if it must be done, but preserve it for core and highest difficulty..
@the_spyder: but if it's not fun, it's not fun. All that really matters is whether you enjoy the game.
Eh, no. That's not all BG is about.
The point of BG was to try and recreate the exprience of playing PnP D&D with a reasonable degree of faithfulness. Otherwise, there are a great many things you would do differently if designing rules purely for a computer game. Resting to recover spells for example. You know what you get if you start to throw away PnP rules just because you don't like them? Dragon Age (Blurgh!)
What else could we replace it with? Well, we could forget PnP and get creative. It wouldn't be hard to fashion an effect that is appropriately powerful but less annoying. If you want to get really nasty, how about -3 CON and -3 STR and Slow and 50% miscast magic? How about -3 CON and save vs. death or be put to sleep? There's all sorts of things you could do... but it's kind of arbitrary and different people would prefer different effects. Again, it's subjective. Personally, I'm 100% with the OP.
Actually you have convinced me here. I agree that in it's current form Level Drain doesn't really make Vampires a dangerous opponent. It only makes them annoying. Since you wouldn't risk fighting them unless you were immune. On the other hand if Vampires let's say would reduce vital combat stats or incapacitate, you would take your chances, even though the outcome might be as lethal.
Or we could just update the whole game to 4th edition, and turn it into hello kitty island adventure 2: Happy fun times with friends.
Actually, the easiest way to handle Level drain is to remove all forms of negative plane protection (except the spell, but reduce it to only blocking a single attack, lasting for 4 turns), and implement IWD style fatigue penalties, rather then this...crap BG has. You could still restore your characters via spells/scrolls but those fatigue penalties would get BRUTAL after the 2nd restoration (unless you rest-cheese). IWD gives you a fatigue penalty after ~24 hours, then adds an additional -1 penalty every hour or so after. Slightly more or less depending on where your Con is sitting.
Give blackguards and undead hunters the ability to cast NPP 1 per 4 levels in place of immunity. And replace all items that give it with a single daily of NPP. This would be the modified NPP that only blocks a single attack.
If you rest-cheese to get through an encounter after all that, you can't complain at all, since it was all you that reduced difficulty from legitimately life-threatening, to merely being an annoyance.
As with most problems in BG, it's the extreme Monty Haul nature of the game that screws the challenge, not the intrinsic weakness or annoyance of the core rules themselves (of which BG vampires are actually really damn accurate interpretations, more so then most of the other creatures..only beholders really come close to beating them in that regard).
Well...and all the completely made up kit bonuses that grossly overpower the kits, often to point of not resembling their original version anymore.
I can't think of any items at all in actual PnP that give 100% protection from level drains all the time.
And restoration is actually worse in PnP then it is in BG...not only does it age both the caster and recipient 2 years per spell and only heal 1 level at a time, as mentioned above, it also exhausts both of them to the point neither can take any strenuous activity or spell-casting until receiving 24 hours of rest.
The OP convinced me. I didn't think I'd be convinced, but I was.
I think the ideal implementation of level drain goes something like this:
-Dangerous enough in the immediate moment that you want to avoid it -Not so dangerous that you feel like your only option is to negate it completely -Enough of a problem that you probably want to fix it -Not so much of a hassle to fix that you feel like your only option is to negate it completely
So I think a fair change to it would be to give level drain a long duration (but not a permanent duration), and to keep spells memorized so that when the afflicted person is cured (or it wears off), you don't have to re-do your spell book. And also give Negative Plane Protection a scaling duration. This way you have the option of whether or not you want to try to prevent level drain, and the option of whether or not you want to cure it on the spot in exchange for a fatigue penalty. More strategic choices is always better than fewer.
That said, I don't want the devs to change it. I'd like to see it changed by the modding community. That way I can get the gaming experience I want, without imposing the cure to my frustrations on everybody else (namely, those that don't experience those same frustrations).
Just remembered, it is Stirges that drain Con. This is supposed to represent blood loss.
Just to reiterate D&D vampire level drain does NOT represent blood loss from a bite. It represents their strong connection to the negative plane, as with Wights, Wraiths and Spectres, and is based on TOUCH.
@the_spyder: but if it's not fun, it's not fun. All that really matters is whether you enjoy the game.
Eh, no. That's not all BG is about.
The point of BG was to try and recreate the exprience of playing PnP D&D with a reasonable degree of faithfulness. Otherwise, there are a great many things you would do differently if designing rules purely for a computer game. Resting to recover spells for example. You know what you get if you start to throw away PnP rules just because you don't like them? Dragon Age (Blurgh!)
I have to disagree with you. It's a game. If the game isn't fun, why do you play it? Sure there can be frustrating bits. And bits that are less fun. And rules you may not like. And all of that goes with the rules set. But if you are playing a game and it stops being fun, stop playing it. This isn't a job. The world won't come to an end if you give up. And if your "Fun" is authenticity and completionism, then that is fun as well. But yeah. if you are playing a game that is no fun, stop playing.
@the_spyder: but if it's not fun, it's not fun. All that really matters is whether you enjoy the game.
Eh, no. That's not all BG is about.
The point of BG was to try and recreate the exprience of playing PnP D&D with a reasonable degree of faithfulness. Otherwise, there are a great many things you would do differently if designing rules purely for a computer game. Resting to recover spells for example. You know what you get if you start to throw away PnP rules just because you don't like them? Dragon Age (Blurgh!)
I have to disagree with you. It's a game. If the game isn't fun, why do you play it? Sure there can be frustrating bits. And bits that are less fun. And rules you may not like. And all of that goes with the rules set. But if you are playing a game and it stops being fun, stop playing it. This isn't a job. The world won't come to an end if you give up. And if your "Fun" is authenticity and completionism, then that is fun as well. But yeah. if you are playing a game that is no fun, stop playing.
Sure, you play for fun, but a lot of the fun in BG comes from PnP nostalga. There are a VAST raft of things in BG that simply wouldn't be there if it wasn't for that factor.
spyder, zanath et al - wow, you guys are totally missing the point. When you say things like this: "It's not like it's hard to counter either, with all of BG2's hand-holding" That's the thing. We don't want to play a game where you just use a particular type of hand-holding and then voila, you're past the encounter. When I try to role-play a bit - like, pretend my character can't see the future and buff the party in oddly specific ways before every combat, including ambushes - I usually get rewarded with difficult fights. Taking on the Amazon assassins after beating Mulahey in the Nashkel mines without resting in between? *Nasty.* But awesomely nasty.
Vampires? Not nasty - I never die, they're not that dangerous - but it becomes a headache. It's not fun. All Mathmick is saying is, maybe there is some creative way to reduce the headache, minimize the silly meta-gaming/hand-holding, retain the challenge, and maximize the fun.
Anyway, people are becoming less than respectful here, so I'm out.
Wait. What????
"When I try to role-play a bit - like, pretend my character can't see the future and buff the party in oddly specific ways before every combat, including ambushes "
Clearly someone is trying to make a point at any cost. Vampires, when you first encounter them, are supposed to catch you off guard. They are supposed to scare the crap out of you. They are supposed to be that encounter that you run away from. In short, they are supposed to catch you off guard. And if you are Meta-gaming, as you seem to suggest you HAVE to do, then you are ruining your own experience. Later, once you realize what the 'Threat' is, you KNOW when you are going to encounter them again, or at least have some idea what to prepare. There is one particular 'Assault' that you are told what you are up against and are given a tool to protect yourself with. This isn't going in blind. This isn't meta-gaming. There are big sign posts IN GAME that tell you what is coming.
But I strongly suspect that what you want is the ability to face any encounter and automatically be ahead of the game with little or no preparation. I suspect that you don't want to face anything that potions of healing and a meat shield won't defeat. And the more I read, the more I suspect that the problem isn't with having to "Re-memorize" the spells you have lost, but that you quite simply don't want to mess with your spell books at all. You want to have a set list of spells that you always memorize and never go back to that.
In that, I can 'Almost' see your point of view. But in doing that, you are handicapping a significant portion of the game, in my view. And quite frankly, I don't want the game to be ruined for the rest of us simply to accommodate someone's laziness.
@Fardragon, I guess I am not understanding your point? I said that it is all about having fun. Even if your "Fun" is nostalgia about playing by the rules. You say that there are some rules in the game that wouldn't be there if not for the PnP version. ??? Do you enjoy the game as a whole? Do you enjoy the nostalgia of playing even the rules that you don't like? Do you enjoy the game despite the fact that there are things about it you don't enjoy? Then you are having fun. And I would hope that if it was a thoroughly miserable experience, you would stop playing. Unless you enjoy being miserable. Which some people do.
Hey, I am not saying "don't play". I am merely trying to understand what your issue with my statement is.
Comments
Second, I guess I am not getting your argument, so maybe you can clarify. You indicate that level drain doesn't impact "IN COMBAT" (where your exact words). Once hit, every single character impacted by level drain immediately loses hit points and ability to hit opponents. They also lose IMMEDIATELY and in combat, any spells that they no longer qualify to cast (in or out of combat). Furthermore, they are susceptible to any spells at lower saving throws directly in combat. Seems to me that the impact is direct and right away AS WELL AS what happens after combat.
But let's examine what you suggest. That it be a 'Debuff' that wears off in combat. In what way does that make them just as terrifying?
I had one combat in BG2 once where my only cleric got nailed and reduced below the ability to cast Lesser Restoration. I had to retreat out of the dungeon and seek the assistance of a temple in order to get back in the game. To you, I imagine that falls under the category of 'nuisance'. To me, that made me really terrified of Vampires. In a very real sense, their abilities actually had impact not only on that individual combat, but it had broad ranging impact on any further combats that I might get in to. There was a permanence to the attack that said this wasn't something that could be resolved by downing a healing potion.
One of the biggest pains "To Me" in the game is getting hit by Confusion. This disables my party members and leaves them wandering around, sometimes actually damaging my other party members. But even that is transient until I can either wait it out or remove it by magic. Level drain has the potential to be MUCH more terrifying. Sure, it is a PITA. Sure it lasts a while and requires some significant effort to recover from it. You think that is annoying. I think that is the STRENGTH of the attack.
But, so what would you recommend to replace it? I would be first in line to say Nay to a transient Debuff, specifically for the reasons above. And ability reductions are variable in nature such that what significantly impacts one class or character would be negligible to another. So what other options are there?
Still, something irks me about having a game mechanic which has a main goal of frustrating the player. At least Confusion can be counter-spelled by a common third-level spell. One of my personal dislikes, fear, also has its counters. It doesn't feel right that the most problematic part of an enemy ability is getting rid of the effects, and not dealing with it then and there.
I feel like I should care about being hit by it, however whenever I am hit I stop caring about how my character is weaker in combat, and focus more on "Ugggggh.... I have to deal with getting rid of this thing now."
Nonetheless, fighting a losing argument or no, I do think I achieved my goal of seeing everyone's opinion on this. Spell memory at the very least should be implemented, though changing the dynamic of Level Drain vs. Negative Plane Protection is still arguable.
As far as CON is concerned, or any of the permutations you mentioned with CON/STR etc... A wizard with a 1 CON can be just as formidable as with a 16 CON. Even with a hit of CON and STR, he can still cast some pretty powerful spells. Fighters, on the other hand, lose not only the ability to be a meat shield. With lower CON they lose their ability to do any actual Melee combat, which is their primary ability. Sans that, they are archers and if they don't have a good ranged weapon, or the STR/DEX to use it properly, they are hosed. See how this is very far from equal?
Also, in reading your list of "all sorts of things you can do", none of them speak to "Don't fight these things until and unless you are ABSOLUTELY ready to do so." And that is the true essence of both the problem and the power of Vampires in BG2. You are supposed to avoid them at all costs until you have the ability (and magic) to stand up to them. A simple "in combat" solution is never going to do that.
To example. In BG1, the first time you encounter a basilisk, and it turns your fighter to stone, I bet that scared you. I know it did me. And it was different than hit points. I couldn't use the same tactics of "Meat shield" to block it. it really made me re-think my strategy against them. And avoid them until I had the magic and power to knock them out. Sans the ability to turn characters to stone, they are really rather useless and wimpy. But with them, you learn to stay away until you can prepare and attack them.
Vampires in BG2 are the basilisks of BG2. But even more so because they are primary to the story. If you 'defang' them as you suggest, they become nothing more than a slightly higher damage monster with regeneration. Even the ability to 'or fall asleep' is a combat only solution. And as such, there would have to be a protection against that. But more than that, you (or at least I) wouldn't fear them as anything other than a slightly more powerful combatant. Unless the impact lasted far beyond the combat and in fact effected every subsequent combat until the effects were removed.
But at the end of the day, the fact that you don't want to be 'scared' by the possibility of facing vampires suggests that you want to feel superior to all of the monsters in the game. In BG as in any type of game, if there isn't the possibility of failure, and in fact if you aren't afraid of failure, where is the challenge? Where is the thrill of beating something? If you aren't afraid of it, how can you feel triumphant if you win against it?
Another change I would like is to add a new level 7 spell, Negative Plane Protection 10 radius just like Protection from Evil 10 Radius. This is analogous to lv7 Greater Restoration which heals and removes level drain for the entire party.
That's like saying, hey lets remove Beholder's Eye beams and anti-magic cone because they'll strip all my buffs, prevent my spell casting and utterly destroy my party if I'm not extremely careful or using the shield of cheese, against even a single beholder (that are actually MUCH weaker then they should be), god forbid a city full of them.
I mean hell, even Ravenloft vampires still have level drain on hit, and they implement much more folk-lore accurate versions then BG or general DnD does.
It's not like it's hard to counter either, with all of BG2's hand-holding.
Characters above level 10, have so much HP, unless you do something REALLY stupid, you have no realistic chance of being killed by anything short of a Lich, High tier demon, or Beholder (sadly dragons and mind flayers are a joke and don't make the cut). Level Drain is a largely upper level mechanic to keep the threat of death present in high level adventurers.
Core DnD vampires have highly concentrated negative energy that is unleashed through physical strikes. So much so in fact, anyone drained to death by a vampire, is reanimated as another vampire by the residual negative energy after a period of days if restoration isn't cast on or holy water isn't poured liberally over the remains before burial to purge the energy. (that reproduction aspect of level draining is true of all level draining undead, it's how they propagate. Even the spells Enervation (not currently implemented) and Energy drain are supposed to (currently don't) reanimate the target as an undead creature (usually a zombie of 1/2 (enervation) or equal HD (Energy Drain) to the original creature, under the caster's control) if it dies as a result of the spell.
Vampire's do have a vampire bite, it's only usable against helpless (victims of their dominating gaze or sleeping people) or grappled (not implemented in BG) targets, which allows them basically instant kill the target via level draining as a coup de grace, or auto-drain several levels per round for grappled targets (similar to how Mind Flayer's eating your brain is SUPPOSED to work, none of this draining int on hit BS, except it's an instant kill on the next turn if you don't break their grapple).
Level drain isn't even common. There's a few areas where you face a bunch of level drainers at once, and then LONG stretches without anyone draining levels. And you'll most likely have to pick different spells anyway since those areas have specific needs, so it's not even an inconvenience to repick spells, unless you do something cheesy like resting after every 1-2 fights, and I fail to see why restoration needs it fatigue removed...you're gonna rest afterward anyway to recover lost special ability uses or spells regardless. (Not that BG's fatigue isn't an F'ing joke in the first place...if we had IWD fatigue..I might see your argument...but by the time you get to level draining enemies in BG2, a loss of 1 or 2 thac0 is a joke....mages are the only ones that get even a minor inconvenience out of the BG fatigue).
When you walk around the corner and see a group of vampires/wraiths etc., which of these matches your first thoughts:
-"Oh no, that group of Vampires will use Level Drain to tear my group apart if I'm not careful!"
-"Oh no, that group of Vampires will use Level Drain and force me to re-memorise my spell lists after altering priest spells
Personally, I don't care about losing THAC0, HP or even memorised spells mid-combat. It's the process of getting rid of it afterwards (Priest re-memorise or at worst a trip back to town) that makes it stupid and frustrating to deal with. In combat, there probably could be better ways of dealing with it, but that's fine the way it is.
The frustrating time spent doing this could be better spent doing more dungeon-exploring or fighting other things. Instead you have this effect that has an unnecessary down-time associated with just getting rid of it, disrupting game flow and detracting from the more enjoyable aspects of slaughtering more stuff, looting chests for neat new items or otherwise simply exploring.
I say leave it as is.
And for your question, none of the above. I go "Finally, a real challenge!"....at least until that A-hole cleric insta-gibs them with turning (or commands them and makes them kill each other) and I start cursing.
Obviously, if you're having trouble, you're not preparing adequately. If you suspect level draining enemies, stick a restoration or two in your first couple spell slots, so they'll most likely survive removal if drained. Or hell, just carry a scroll case of restoration scrolls like I do. Unless you screw up majorly, your caster's should never get level drained, unless they're a hybrid warrior type, which don't really NEED their spells, so even if they lose them all, they can still hack their way through the enemies, even if fatigued, after a quick restoration scroll (only used if they're REALLY low and in danger of dying, otherwise I wait till the end).
The OP left out that a wise mage can also cast Limited Wish and sometimes get Negative Plane Protection for the whole party. I'm not sure about the duration, though.
I'd like to see NPP become an AOE party buff with a longer duration that scales with level. The fatigue on Restoration needs to go, too.
Or make Turn Undead prevent level drain from being used in the area. You trade your cleric for protection.
Like petrification and fear, it should be pretty manageable with preparation.
The point of BG was to try and recreate the exprience of playing PnP D&D with a reasonable degree of faithfulness. Otherwise, there are a great many things you would do differently if designing rules purely for a computer game. Resting to recover spells for example. You know what you get if you start to throw away PnP rules just because you don't like them? Dragon Age (Blurgh!)
Actually, the easiest way to handle Level drain is to remove all forms of negative plane protection (except the spell, but reduce it to only blocking a single attack, lasting for 4 turns), and implement IWD style fatigue penalties, rather then this...crap BG has. You could still restore your characters via spells/scrolls but those fatigue penalties would get BRUTAL after the 2nd restoration (unless you rest-cheese). IWD gives you a fatigue penalty after ~24 hours, then adds an additional -1 penalty every hour or so after. Slightly more or less depending on where your Con is sitting.
Give blackguards and undead hunters the ability to cast NPP 1 per 4 levels in place of immunity. And replace all items that give it with a single daily of NPP. This would be the modified NPP that only blocks a single attack.
If you rest-cheese to get through an encounter after all that, you can't complain at all, since it was all you that reduced difficulty from legitimately life-threatening, to merely being an annoyance.
As with most problems in BG, it's the extreme Monty Haul nature of the game that screws the challenge, not the intrinsic weakness or annoyance of the core rules themselves (of which BG vampires are actually really damn accurate interpretations, more so then most of the other creatures..only beholders really come close to beating them in that regard).
Well...and all the completely made up kit bonuses that grossly overpower the kits, often to point of not resembling their original version anymore.
I can't think of any items at all in actual PnP that give 100% protection from level drains all the time.
And restoration is actually worse in PnP then it is in BG...not only does it age both the caster and recipient 2 years per spell and only heal 1 level at a time, as mentioned above, it also exhausts both of them to the point neither can take any strenuous activity or spell-casting until receiving 24 hours of rest.
I think the ideal implementation of level drain goes something like this:
-Dangerous enough in the immediate moment that you want to avoid it
-Not so dangerous that you feel like your only option is to negate it completely
-Enough of a problem that you probably want to fix it
-Not so much of a hassle to fix that you feel like your only option is to negate it completely
So I think a fair change to it would be to give level drain a long duration (but not a permanent duration), and to keep spells memorized so that when the afflicted person is cured (or it wears off), you don't have to re-do your spell book. And also give Negative Plane Protection a scaling duration. This way you have the option of whether or not you want to try to prevent level drain, and the option of whether or not you want to cure it on the spot in exchange for a fatigue penalty. More strategic choices is always better than fewer.
That said, I don't want the devs to change it. I'd like to see it changed by the modding community. That way I can get the gaming experience I want, without imposing the cure to my frustrations on everybody else (namely, those that don't experience those same frustrations).
Just to reiterate D&D vampire level drain does NOT represent blood loss from a bite. It represents their strong connection to the negative plane, as with Wights, Wraiths and Spectres, and is based on TOUCH.
"When I try to role-play a bit - like, pretend my character can't see the future and buff the party in oddly specific ways before every combat, including ambushes "
Clearly someone is trying to make a point at any cost. Vampires, when you first encounter them, are supposed to catch you off guard. They are supposed to scare the crap out of you. They are supposed to be that encounter that you run away from. In short, they are supposed to catch you off guard. And if you are Meta-gaming, as you seem to suggest you HAVE to do, then you are ruining your own experience. Later, once you realize what the 'Threat' is, you KNOW when you are going to encounter them again, or at least have some idea what to prepare. There is one particular 'Assault' that you are told what you are up against and are given a tool to protect yourself with. This isn't going in blind. This isn't meta-gaming. There are big sign posts IN GAME that tell you what is coming.
But I strongly suspect that what you want is the ability to face any encounter and automatically be ahead of the game with little or no preparation. I suspect that you don't want to face anything that potions of healing and a meat shield won't defeat. And the more I read, the more I suspect that the problem isn't with having to "Re-memorize" the spells you have lost, but that you quite simply don't want to mess with your spell books at all. You want to have a set list of spells that you always memorize and never go back to that.
In that, I can 'Almost' see your point of view. But in doing that, you are handicapping a significant portion of the game, in my view. And quite frankly, I don't want the game to be ruined for the rest of us simply to accommodate someone's laziness.
Hey, I am not saying "don't play". I am merely trying to understand what your issue with my statement is.