Restore Lost Life

[DavidMedley]

I know this is a big departure from one of the core features of the game, and I'm not even sure it's a good idea. BUT: what if monsters that drained XP returned that XP to you if you kill them? Of course, for balance's sake, something would have to be added to those attacks... maybe the drained XP could be significantly more, perhaps even 10x. Then the draining would have serious immediate consequences, but you'd have a way to recover without an item. It would be more like monsters that steal items from you. Or drain XP could come with a random stat drain, too. Or temporary slowness.

Lots of ways to go to keep the steal XP attack powerful, if we implemented the return-xp-upon death suggestion above. Does anyone actually like this suggestion?

[Adam]

Sorry, i'm against it.
I do like that one needs to consider the risk of permanent XP loss if they go into battle with certain monsters.
The above change also would make Hold Life and the various restore XP methods far less useful in my opinion.

[Sphara]

You mean game would still keep !RLLs ? Hold life would be the same? If not, I'm imagining chasing time/chaos vortices, that ever so often get outta-LOS (or behind the monster pack) drain breath at you. Also, I see my drainer getting trampled by something and I'm left to level up again.

I would probably be ok with this idea if it only happened with draining melee attacks. Hard to say without trying. All in all, far too many attack types (nether, time, chaos) would make me chase just one monster.

[dionysian]

This is an interesting idea. The more I think about it, the more I like it.

It might also be a good idea to eliminate the stat restoration on level increases that result from levels regained when xp is restored. That might be a good change to implement on its own, but it would certainly make sense here. Otherwise, xp drain would run the risk of turning into a "free" stat restore.

[Gwarl]

Blackguard special ability?

[Derakon]

I've occasionally suggested that we replace the permanent XP drain that monsters inflict with temporary (i.e. goes away on its own after a short time) level drain, which !RLL would then fix. Currently, players avoid being XP drained because nobody likes losing progress, but its actual effects are hard to measure. It's mildly strategically significant, but almost never tactically significant. Whereas if you got bit by a vampire (or breathed on by a nether vortex, etc), and suddenly your spell failure rates increase, you forget some spells, your max HP/SP decreases, etc., then you have a pretty clear and immediate incentive to avoid getting bit again!

[wobbly]

Well if wraiths & vampires evolved into the bigger forms when they drained life they'd give a bunch of xp back when you killed them...

[Ingwe Ingweron]

The only truly permanent experience drain I'm aware of is that of the potential One Ring activation side-effect. No potion, spell or artifact will recover experience lost a a result of activating The One Ring.

[DavidMedley]

I've occasionally suggested that we replace the permanent XP drain that monsters inflict with temporary (i.e. goes away on its own after a short time) level drain, which !RLL would then fix. Currently, players avoid being XP drained because nobody likes losing progress, but its actual effects are hard to measure. It's mildly strategically significant, but almost never tactically significant. Whereas if you got bit by a vampire (or breathed on by a nether vortex, etc), and suddenly your spell failure rates increase, you forget some spells, your max HP/SP decreases, etc., then you have a pretty clear and immediate incentive to avoid getting bit again!

Yeah, exactly. I think there's plenty of ways to make XP drain interesting. Here are some problems, as I see it, with the current system.

1) IT'S NOT FUN!
2) The monster doesn't seem to derive any benefit. Contrast with Drain Mana.
3) (or maybe 2a) The immediate effect on the player is negligible.
4) Above CL 50 it can be really useless

[Sky]

tbh i'd be hapy that life loss scaled with damage, or that there were tiers of life loss. Losing 20k xp to a vampire bat is infuriating.

[Pete Mack]

Losing 20k to a vampire bat is karma. They are easy to detect and have almost no HP. Just a single shot from a half-decent bow, or a wand of fire bolts will destroy it. No need to let it get close.

[archolewa]

I mean, it's called "Drain Life" so why not have it drain max HP?

Then, it'd be freaking terrifying. If you wanted to be *really* nasty you could also have your enemy regain as much health as they drained from you.

Though in this case, you might also want to make it temporary, or it'd be too easy to end up in a "not dead, but basically dead" state.

[DavidMedley]

I mean, it's called "Drain Life" so why not have it drain max HP?

Then, it'd be freaking terrifying. If you wanted to be *really* nasty you could also have your enemy regain as much health as they drained from you.

Though in this case, you might also want to make it temporary, or it'd be too easy to end up in a "not dead, but basically dead" state.

This is a very good idea. Dangerous.

[Sideways]

I mean, it's called "Drain Life" so why not have it drain max HP?

Then, it'd be freaking terrifying. If you wanted to be *really* nasty you could also have your enemy regain as much health as they drained from you.

Though in this case, you might also want to make it temporary, or it'd be too easy to end up in a "not dead, but basically dead" state.

This is basically how it works in Pos-likes; although loss of life/max HP is only temporary in the sense that it can be cured (and because "life" only accounts for half of your max HP, it's possible to run out of life before you actually run out of HP, which turns you into an undead instead of killing you outright).

[Pete Mack]

(Moved from a different thread.) The trouble with this argument is it could be made about every nuisance attack. None of them are fun, and in any case drain CON already does take away HP. And yet, if you got rid of all nuisance attacks, the game would be boring.