Energy Drain on Dual Class characters

Pantalion

Behaviour: When a Level 1 Dual Class thief, level 21 Fighter, is energy drained once, they become a Level 0 thief and are killed instantly.

Expected: Energy Drain, if I recall, is supposed to affect the highest level in a dual class first, and if not, draining 1 level of thief still leaves 21 levels of Fighter, meaning the character should not die. This should not preclude inactive classes.

Gallowglass

Er ... you shouldn't be able to dual-class at less than level 2. You've 'keepered it?

Also, this doesn't sound like you're talking about Energy Drain at all, it sounds more like an issue with Level Drain. Not the same thing.

Nevertheless, yes, it doesn't make sense for Level Drain to affect the original class first, it ought to apply to the current class.

Pantalion

Gallowglass said:

Er ... you shouldn't be able to dual-class at less than level 2. You've 'keepered it?

Also, this doesn't sound like you're talking about Energy Drain at all, it sounds more like an issue with Level Drain. Not the same thing.

Nevertheless, yes, it doesn't make sense for Level Drain to affect the original class first, it ought to apply to the current class.

Active class is Thief. Sarevok 21 -> Dual into Thief. I believe by PnP rules Energy drain should work on either the class with the most levels, or both levels at once, but because the Fighter levels aren't active, what's happening is it's dropping his active class, checking "level 0" to be true, then insta-killing, which isn't how it's supposed to work since, theoretically, the levels are "still there but dormant".

Secondly, the thing caused by undead that lowers character levels is indeed called "Energy Drain". You can check it on your Character Record.

Gallowglass

Pantalion said:

Active class is Thief. Sarevok 21 -> Dual into Thief.

Ah, right, I see. I thought you were talking about a Thief early-dualled into Fighter.

Pantalion said:

Secondly, the thing caused by undead that lowers character levels is indeed called "Energy Drain". You can check it on your Character Record.

Er ... not exactly - the Record sheet replaces the experience counter (and next level counter) with "LEVEL DRAINED" (caps in original), but then shows "Energy Drain" in the effects list a couple of lines below that, so it's using both terms at once. To avoid confusion with the type of Energy Drain which nerfs stats (caused by sundry other creatures and spells), I suggest that "Level Drain" is the preferable terminology for the effect which nerfs levels.

Pantalion said:

I believe by PnP rules Energy drain should work on either the class with the most levels, or both levels at once, but because the Fighter levels aren't active, what's happening is it's dropping his active class, checking "level 0" to be true, then insta-killing, which isn't how it's supposed to work since, theoretically, the levels are "still there but dormant".

Hmmm. I'm not a PnP expert and didn't know this, but I don't think I like that PnP rule. To me, it makes sense that it should be the active level which is affected, because that's the one which benefits from XP gains and therefore logically ought to be the one which suffers (by a Drain) from XP losses.

So I reckon the current behaviour is both intentional and desirable, even if it's a deviation from PnP rules, and even though it means that recently-dualled characters will be particularly vulnerable until they've got a few levels back. (You're pretty unlucky to run into this issue immediately after dualling, considering how very fast a newly-dualled character will gain the first few levels at that stage of the game.)