Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd
Subject: Re: The illogic of draining levels
From: jwwalden@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu (P'relan)
Date: 22 Aug 92 20:46:44 -0500
Distribution: na
Organization: Dept. of Physics

In article <1992Aug22.042946.15112@wixer.cactus.org>, raistlin@wixer.cactus.org (Eli Boaz) writes:
> In article <1992Aug21.132730.1127@bnr.ca> dclayton@bnr.ca (Don Clayton) writes:
>>I agree with Andrew 100%.  I say : "You see a Dragon/Drow/Other Monster"
>>and for the most part my players say "Ok, ready for attack/talk/blah blah
>>blah".  The one time I said : "You see a Vampire", they said "Holly SHIT,
>>run, run, run, fireball, run, teleport, etc.".  It really added some fun
>>to the game.  Besides, levels can be restored by High Level Clerics, and
>>it helps in my world (Forgotten Realms) that there happens to be a lot of
>>very high level clerics around (of course, sometimes this is bad too).

Well, how you play the monster as DM and how you set up the encounter can have
a much more to do with how much of a challenge the monster provides to the
party.  I've defeated 10th-level parties with gnolls before and have had them
come up with clever plans and defeat nastier opponents like ancient dragons
almost without taking a scratch.  It's more fun to have the party afraid of
the Bloodrinker tribe of gnolls because of their cunning and traps rather than
have them afraid of a certain type of monster because of a certain special
ability.  Module Q1 nicely shows how relatively weak monsters can be set up
to defeat quite powerful parties.  There was also a nice editorial in Dragon
a fairly long time ago by Roger Moore about a group of kobolds who made life
miserable for a high level party who had to go through them to get to the
lower dungeon levels where they could peaceably face bearable opponents like
demons.
 
> I have to disagree with both of you.  Undead are *wimps*.  The way TSR set
> them up is a bit on the weak side, IMHO.  Personally, in my campaign Undead
> are *not* affected by weapons or spells (exception: healing spells) unless
> the weapon or spell in question is specifically created to destroy the undead
> (ie. mace of disruption) or if there is a known weakness of the undead
> creature (ie. stake-through-the-heart, silver weapons, garlic, etc).  Magical
> weapons only do the damage indicated by their plusses (ie. sword +2 does 2 pts
> of damage).  In a campaign I'm setting up (levels: 10 - 14) wights are truly
> something to yell "Holy SH*T!" at...  Even though I do allow a save vs. death
> magic (at a -5 penalty) to avoid the level drain.

In terms of resistances, undead are weak in the manuals which is why I did much
as you did though not to such an extreme.  Corporeal undead take quarter damage
from all weapons (those requiring silver or magic to hit them still require
that of course) along with their normal book immunities, while noncorporeal
undead only took damage from the magical pluses of the weapons (so a +3 sword
wielding by an 18/00 strength fighter who specials just does 3 points of dmg).
Oh, and arrows do nothing to corporeal undead - it doesn't make sense to be
able to fill a zombie full of arrows and kill it though you might accomplish
something by attaching a line to an arrow.  Fire likewise can't kill the already
dead except by destroying them wholesale and so undead only take half or 1/4
damage, depending on save (noncorporeal only take damage from magical fire as
do undead unharmed by normal weapons).  Other attacks work similarly...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 P'relan (and Birith)      	   ``Time stand still -
 jwwalden@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu      I'm not looking back -
  or jwwalden@miavx1.bitnet	     But I want to look around me now.'' - RUSH
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd