Alternatives to Level Damage
Alternatives to Level Damage
This is not about replacing level damage in my campaign. As I said in my other thread, I’ve got a shadow dragon coming up in my ACKS campaign, and their breath weapon causes temporary level loss. I’ve got a very large party, so I need a way to shorthand this without making everyone spend a bunch of time figuring out their new rolls and such.
The dragon’s breath causes ¾ level loss or ½ level on a save. For shorthand, I’m thinking (successful save in parentheses):
¾ (½) hit points lost
-4 (-2) to all attacks, damage rolls, and saves
Spellcasters lose highest 3 (2) levels of spells they can cast
That seems to cover the main things that happen with level loss. Better ideas? Reasonable?
pretty much that.
ReplyDeletereduction in ability to cast spells for magic users.
Does it stack after successive hits? If I recall correctly in 2E losing levels down to 0 kills you right? What about access to spells or special abilities that are level based?
ReplyDeletesince it's temporary, I would just make it last longer.
ReplyDeleteI think if it gets a chance to breath twice, you make another save if you suceeded the first time. But no doubling up. So if you saved the first time, but failed the second, you'd take another 1/4 of your hp damage and the full penalties.
ReplyDeleteACKS doesn't have a lot of combat level based abilities, besides increased damage, which is why that's in there.
Do it like how Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup does it. It used to be permaloss (which was not fun), now it's just varying degrees of minuses to your skills. So basically how you have it in the OP.
ReplyDeleteI like it, seems cool.
ReplyDeleteMy main objection to level loss is that it's something earned rather than given.
It's like the difference between a bill that drains your current bank balance versus something that removes all of your earned raises from your income and moves you to a lower pay grade.