I've read somewhere that old school players only fear two things, petrification and energy drain. Petrification because you can haul a corpse out of the dungeon, but not a human-sized statue; and energy drain because it takes away your hard-earned levels, no save.

While back in the day I was soft, and house-ruled energy drain to affect ability scores instead of levels, today I use it as described. It's a great tool for instilling terror, because it means that one 6HD spectre can cut your 13th-level fighter down to size with a few unlucky rolls.

I still allow a save, though. And I've been thinking of making it temporary, but at the cost of psychological effects (insanity); after all, some undead monster just stole a piece of your fucking soul and that's gonna leave a mark.

Quote from: StormBringer;366727It wasn't fun, to be sure, but it was about the only way to make fearful opponents out of the undead.  I am not entirely convinced that a Con or HP loss would have been received any better.  It was a fairly arbitrary loss that felt a lot like negative fiat, but I don't think it was any more psychologically abhorred than a different type of loss would have been.

It does have a fairly easy fix, though:  make the loss temporary.  Recover lost levels at a rate of one per day or week, or through a lower level cleric spell than restoration.  Perhaps minor restoration as a fourth level spell that works like restoration, and major restoration at seventh level that recovers all lost levels at some cost to the caster, like temporary Con or HP penalties.

Yes.

First off, we made it a permananet HP loss.  Stupid having character's forget how to do things.

And secondly, we use a moderate level minor restoration to return an amount of HP.

and to answer the OP, it scares the shit out of my PCs.  We run a very low HP world already.

Quote from: Soylent Green;366704Do players really dread the classic D&D energy drain more than character death itself or is it just the people I know?

In OD&D, B/X, 1e, etc, it certainly made undead feared, but I honestly can't remember anyone dropping a primary character because he/she had suffered a level drain.

I eventually replaced it with a CON drain (just about as bad as that lowered the character's sysyem shock and resurrection survival roll) with a temporary -1 to all rolls per point of CON lost. I replaced it not so much because of player screams but because the level loss really did not match the effects undead had in books and films that well.  People generally got weaker, but they did not forget knowledge or the like.

As a player I feared it. Turn tail and run, and let the spectres take the hindmost. (Yeah, that's you, dwarf-in-plate-mail. See you on the other side, stumpy.)

As a referee I loved it. Level-draining undead that can move through floors and walls - lawds, what's not to love?

As a player I feared it and loved it.  It really captured for me a certain unwordly dread the powerful undead should inspire.  A fate worse than death.

It certainly sucked so we bent heaven and earth to have Restoration and the like on hand.

The only part I didn't like was the book keeping hassle of it all.  I'd much rather have it as an xp loss without the ability loss.  Maybe not as fearful but still pretty bad.

My hard core 2e group from high school thought dealing with energy drain was a part of being good at D&D. No one wanted to puss out on it.

However, they were really careful with undead. The GM usually gave warning when something undead was going on.

Quote from: Cranewings;366870My hard core 2e group from high school thought dealing with energy drain was a part of being good at D&D. No one wanted to puss out on it.

However, they were really careful with undead. The GM usually gave warning when something undead was going on.

I think that is really the key.  Getting piled on with no warning by a pack of wights in the middle of town in broad daylight is a dick move, no question.  Poking around the necromancer's lair, though, you gotta expect undead attacks and plan accordingly.

Part of the dread in dealing with them is the suspense in building it up; without that, it is just another bullshit punishment from an asshole DM.

Quote from: StormBringer;366888I think that is really the key.  Getting piled on with no warning by a pack of wights in the middle of town in broad daylight is a dick move, no question.  Poking around the necromancer's lair, though, you gotta expect undead attacks and plan accordingly.

Part of the dread in dealing with them is the suspense in building it up; without that, it is just another bullshit punishment from an asshole DM.

I totally agree.

Quote from: StormBringer;366888I think that is really the key.  Getting piled on with no warning by a pack of wights in the middle of town in broad daylight is a dick move, no question.  Poking around the necromancer's lair, though, you gotta expect undead attacks and plan accordingly.

Part of the dread in dealing with them is the suspense in building it up; without that, it is just another bullshit punishment from an asshole DM.

No kidding...DM should at least provide some clues.

How hard is it to throw in a few emaciated adventurer corpses, mouth set into a silent scream of endless agony, or a putrid stench of decay, or an unnatural chill in the air?

Getting ambushed by wights without warning is complete bullshit. I speak from experience : (

Quote from: StormBringer;366888I think that is really the key.  Getting piled on with no warning by a pack of wights in the middle of town in broad daylight is a dick move, no question.  Poking around the necromancer's lair, though, you gotta expect undead attacks and plan accordingly.

Part of the dread in dealing with them is the suspense in building it up; without that, it is just another bullshit punishment from an asshole DM.

For true.  While I never nerfed energy drain in the way some others have described, in one or two campaigns I did change it in such a fashion that added some suspense as StormBringer mentioned:

Taking a cue from the trope of there being a "head" vampire and the idea that undead create more undead by slaying with energy drain, I set up most undead in this fashion.  There might be a handful of "head" wraiths or what-have-you that could sap your levels.  The rest were their minions without that capability.  This allowed me to both preserve my hordes of undead, make them figure out which the leaders were, and not just screw the players.

Quote from: StormBringer;366888I think that is really the key.  Getting piled on with no warning by a pack of wights in the middle of town in broad daylight is a dick move, no question.  Poking around the necromancer's lair, though, you gotta expect undead attacks and plan accordingly.

Part of the dread in dealing with them is the suspense in building it up; without that, it is just another bullshit punishment from an asshole DM.

This. This is part of the way a DM makes both game balance and entertainment happen around a table (along with the players' active participation, of course) as opposed to just being a dick on a power trip.

Quote from: winkingbishop;366912For true.  While I never nerfed energy drain in the way some others have described, in one or two campaigns I did change it in such a fashion that added some suspense as StormBringer mentioned:

Taking a cue from the trope of there being a "head" vampire and the idea that undead create more undead by slaying with energy drain, I set up most undead in this fashion.  There might be a handful of "head" wraiths or what-have-you that could sap your levels.  The rest were their minions without that capability.  This allowed me to both preserve my hordes of undead, make them figure out which the leaders were, and not just screw the players.

An excellent idea!

Feared?  Most certainly - and rightly so.  Otherwise undead become just another monster.  Undead should evoke horror, not elation and the prospect of more treasure.  But feared worse than death?  Only if you have a pushover dm.  It's like saying I fear a broken arm worse than death.  Bullshit, you'll get over a broken arm.  Make the whiny pcs start over at level one, they'll fear death more then.